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Weimar University

Talking to Strangers

Don Mackintosh

01 Talking to Strangers

All right, so today, talking to strangers.

My uncle Frank, he loved to talk to strangers.

They never met a stranger, or actually he met many strangers, but by the end of it, they not only were not strangers many times, they were not only friends, they actually were fellow pilgrims on the journey to the Kingdom of Heaven.

We did a survey of our students recently and found out that they are not that comfortable as freshmen talking to strangers.

So I thought, well maybe this would be a good thing to talk about how to talk to strangers and then I You know, I talk to strangers all the time and I guess maybe 1 of the Prerequisites to talk to the strangers is to be strange I'm not sure but I just I kind of love talking to strangers, and it probably is because my Uncle Frank, the children's story, he kind of inspired me.

He would always be talking about how he would be meeting strangers and how they would, you know, come to faith, and he had just, you know, ingenious ways to talk to strangers.

I'm not that ingenious, but when I get on Southwest flights, I always sit in the middle seat, even if I'm an A category list.

Why are you sitting between us when you're an A?

You know, they're like, they don't want to sit next to somebody, and I'm right between them.

And so now I've learned to be a C lister if I'm going to do this, because it's just strange to do it as an A-lister on Southwest, if you know what I mean.

And every single flight this last week that I was going out to this memorial, but I had great conversations with people, and, you know, I don't know, I don't think I was always like that.

But the older I get, the more I get like that.

Because just like Frank ended up in an urn, I'm gonna end up in 1 soon too, and I know there's not much time.

You might think you have a lot of time, you don't have that much time.

And you have such a great message to share with people, amen?

So, you know, I was thinking about talking to strangers, and then I saw a book, Talking to Strangers, What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know, and this book is all about strangers.

So I read the book on the way back, on the plane, or actually just the other couple, over the last, I don't know, 48 hours I read this book.

It basically was saying why you shouldn't really talk to strangers because you really don't know them and they could be doing you wrong.

It just was kind of a dark book, although it was interesting, it was an interesting book.

But I'm not pointing you to get this book, I'm not saying go buy it.

I already read it, I would just tell you to save your money.

But I will reference it a little bit here in the message.

Father in heaven, bless us as we now look at your word and this series on talking to strangers that we begin this week.

All right, Acts chapter 8, verse 26 through 39 is gonna be our study today.

And this is 1 of the passages in the Bible where someone is talking to a stranger, Okay?

There's a number of passages in Scripture where Christ is talking to a stranger or others are.

This happens to be the first Gentile convert in the book of Acts.

Now as an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, an angel, now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

So maybe a prerequisite for talking to anybody, really, if you want it to be fruitful, is to be in touch with angels.

And this particular angel was giving them a direction.

Go to the south, go down from the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza.

And you maybe have seen pictures of that desert because it's in the news all the time now.

So, Philip was directed by an angel of the Lord to take a certain path.

Number 2, the path does not seem especially promising.

Well, sometimes the Lord will impress you to do things, and it does not look especially promising.

And sometimes You don't even know who the stranger is you're gonna talk to.

You just kind of are following God's directions.

Do you have that kind of relationship with God where he is directing you?

If you are, then the angels are ministering spirit, sent to those who are heirs of salvation.

Now 1 time John was trying to worship an angel.

Now angels are not God, and you don't pray to angels, but he was trying to maybe worship an angel because he was, you know, wow, this is a very, very powerful being.

And you know, as I looked in Frank's barbershop, my uncle's barbershop, I just remember as a little boy going there and just amazing things would be happening there.

And my grandfather, his name was Gordon, my name is Gordon too, Donald Gordon, I'm named after him.

He would always be reading these passages about angels and you be talking about, you know, I think maybe this was an angel.

Man, how many of you have ever had something in your life where you realized or you believed it was an angel that was there for you?

When I was a little girl, I used to go to summer camp and we had a minivan and the minivan had overheated on the way up to if anybody's ever been to Camp Cedar Falls and there's a lot of wines and that's a big long road and so we were we got around 1 corner of a turn, but the car just completely shut down.

And not too long after, I don't even remember if we prayed, I just remember a guy with a tow truck came up behind us and wasn't going too fast because he slowed down right behind us past the turn.

And he didn't say a thing the entire time.

He just pointed that he was going to hook up our car to the tow truck and move it over to the side until the car was done overheating and cooled down.

And then we were able to make it the rest of the way to camp.

And as soon as it all happened and he left, all of us turned to each other and thought, and even said, do you think that was an angel?

So, you know, sometimes you entertain strangers and they really are angels and amazing things can happen.

Well, I would like to hear some more of those angel stories, maybe a little bit later from the rest of you.

So, Philip was directed by an angel to take a certain path.

So, it says in verse 27, he arose and went.

How many of you would listen to an angel if it took you off course from the GPS and took you on a desert road?

This course was, he could have gone through Samaria, he could have gone through a populated area, right?

A lot less dangerous maybe because, I don't know.

He gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey him and are not angels ministering spirit, sent to those who are heirs of salvation.

02 Talking to Strangers

Well, we've been in a little mini-series here on, entitled Talking to Strangers.

And there are 2 passages, or there's about 3 passages that I want to cover in this series.

And this is the second of those passages.

1 of the reasons we're spending time in that, and we did a survey of our students, found out that when they, several actually, NITS groups, have a problem talking to strangers, and they want to get better, So they actually indicated they want to improve.

And how many of you would like to get better at talking to strangers?

It's a little different, talking to strangers, a little bit different than talking about them.

So in light of that, you know, I did a little collateral reading and then this week went downtown and because of Ken, where'd Ken go?

Because of Ken I thought I'd go down to the rock shop, but I just ended up spending a few hours down there talking to a bunch of strangers in Auburn.

I'm gonna tell you a little bit about it during the message, but let's just pray again and ask God to bless us.

Father in heaven, Lord, thank you for opportunity.

We have to, again, study your word, and we thank you, we come in Christ's name, amen.

So, In our first part, we looked at Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, that's last week, and got I think 10 pointers, although someone corrected me that I missed a number, and thank you for paying attention.

10 or 11 pointers on how to talk to strangers in Acts chapter 8 and today part 2 John chapter 4 Now Jesus had just finished in John chapter 3 that famous exchange with Nicodemus Nicodemus looked like he was an insider, but he actually was a stranger to the gospel.

Sometimes you're gonna have strangers actually in the house, in the church.

He actually happened to be, you know, like he was a general conference vice president.

He was way up there, and he didn't even know what he should know and so he was counseled by Jesus to be born again of water in the Spirit to actually be rebaptized.

I don't know if Jesus came to a general conference today I don't know if he would make such an appeal.

How many think that he might make such an appeal even today?

And after that, after talking about a stranger who was actually in the church, then talks about this woman that's outside of the church.

And we just heard our scripture reading from Jordan.

Well, and this occurred actually right next to the Jordan River.

He left Judea and departed again to Galilee, but he needed to go through Samaria.

Now, this is a very interesting text because if you look at the geography, Jesus felt an intense need to engage with strangers and he went out of his way to do so.

Because normally people when they went from Judea, down there in Jerusalem, Judea, you can see that at the top of the screen, Judea's at the bottom, right there near Emmaus and Jerusalem and Jericho, to Galilee where Capernaum and Cana and Tiberias are.

Normally the Jew would take that road to the far right, that red road, go through Bethany, then on the other side of the Jordan, and would completely pass by Samaria.

Because everybody in Samaria, they had this stereotype that they were all very bad people and losers and idolaters and pagans and half-breeds and all kinds of names.

And so this text that says Jesus needed to go through Samaria is quite an interesting text.

It's saying Jesus wanted to meet with strangers.

He wanted to meet with people who were estranged.

He wanted to go exactly where people said you should not go to do something they should have been doing, but they weren't doing.

Verse 5, so he came to a city in Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

Now Jacob's well was there, Jesus therefore being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well.

It was about the sixth hour, Or in other words, right in the middle of the day.

So he gets there, the time, the location, smack in the middle of Samaria, where Jews never went.

What does this teach us about talking to strangers?

Number 1, he not only went out of his way to do it, number 2, he positioned himself where he could meet strangers, where many of them would come.

Everybody ultimately has to go by the well to get some water.

I remember once I got in trouble at a camp meeting.

I was a very young pastor and the conference president said, I'm putting you on bathroom duty.

It's another story for a children's story time.

Anyway, you are not fit to be with the group I was with.

I said, well, where are you going to put me?

I'm putting you in charge of the bathrooms.

I said, everybody eventually has to go to the bathroom, so I guess I'll be meeting everybody, not just the small children.

And he goes, I'm going to keep you right where you are.

But Jesus positioned himself where he could meet strangers, where many of them would come.

And he also positioned himself where there were built-in talking points.

There's ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

These are very, very important people in Jewish and Samaritan history.

He's like positioning himself the ultimate place where he has these props he can just point to, you know?

When I go to a store or anything, I'm talking to someone, I see if there's exit signs.

Because that's the story of Joseph, right?

Did that 2 times yesterday when I was talking to strangers.

So he positioned himself where there were built-in talking points.

Now yesterday, as I was walking in Auburn, I came across some ladies who were at, and some men who possessed themselves Right where, is it Lincoln?

And what's the name of that other street that comes right up there?

And they were right there and they had save the earth and environmental protection now.

And I said, wow, they're engaging with the community.

They were interested in how interested I was.

And you know, picketers are people that are doing this kind of stuff, don't normally think that someone's going to come right up to them and talk with them, right?

But I was talking with them, and 1 lady said, I've been out here since 1980.

I said, that's a long time, you look so well, Did you ever change your clothes?

And then the other 1 says, I just came out last week, and they were talking about this.

And they felt like this was an important enough issue, saving earth.

I mean, I'm gonna think saving earth It's a good issue and so we're talking to them and then I said well Elon Musk says forget it and Bezos and they say I just read that they want to take people to Mars And this lady with a sign says save the earth forget Mars because I read the same thing and I was like, wow So do you think there's any other place but the Earth?

I said, well, I can see why you'd be very interested in saving it.

And she goes, well, That's a very odd question you would ask.

And I said, it's not really that odd, really, given the fact that most Americans believe that there's like a heaven.

The lady next to her says, why don't we make Earth like heaven?

So then we kept talking, and you know, these guys were in the background, they even had a band in the back, so they had music, music going on with it too.

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Talking to Strangers

01 Talking to Strangers

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01 Talking to Strangers

45m

02 Talking to Strangers

52m

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