Dealing With the Frustration Over Those Who Reject the Gospel | Matthew 22:1-3

[00:00:00] We'll truth, Daily. This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman.

[00:00:30] We're in the book of Matthew chapter 22, listen to this and it says this and verse 1.

[00:00:55] Again, Jesus spoke to them in parables who's them. The Pharisees, chief priests and elders.

[00:01:02] He's having this ongoing conversation with them. And again, this is like Tuesday or Wednesday of Holy Week.

[00:01:09] So just a few days later he's going to be nailed to a cross.

[00:01:13] Okay, so it says, and again, Jesus spoke to them in parable saying, the king of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

[00:01:22] And his servants to call those were invited and send his servants to call those were invited to the wedding feast.

[00:01:29] But they would not come. Now what happened in this tradition? You see, the king would send out invitations and there really were two invitations that were sent out.

[00:01:39] The first one was, hey, I'm going to have a wedding feast for my son. It's going to be awesome. Please come.

[00:01:45] And they would say, yeah, we're going to come. And then when everything was ready, he would send out his servants again saying, tell them to come.

[00:01:52] And it was in this second invitation that Jesus is referring to in this situation. It was in that second invitation that many times people would say,

[00:02:01] we kind of changed our mind, we're not going to come. Now what's the application of this? Obviously the king is God.

[00:02:09] The wedding feast is a messianic rule when Christ comes back, right? The son obviously is Jesus.

[00:02:16] The servants are those who are sent by the Lord to testify the grace of God and those who are invited are all people, right?

[00:02:25] God wants all people be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. So we want everyone to know who Jesus isn't what he's done.

[00:02:32] And so I want to specifically talk about the times when you share the gospel with someone or invite them to church and they reject it.

[00:02:40] What do you do? Do you give up? Do you quit praying for them? We talked about this a couple weeks ago.

[00:02:46] No, when the Holy Spirit opens the door, you continue to testify the grace of God.

[00:02:51] And as I said at the beginning of this little podcast today, the more clearly we present the gospel.

[00:02:57] And the better job we think we do, of course it's not us. It's a spirit of God working in us.

[00:03:02] But the better job we do in presenting the gospel or making the invitation appealing and we're rejected.

[00:03:08] Sometimes we take it personally. And here's the thing, don't ever take it personally.

[00:03:14] Realize we're just messengers and bachelors sent by the Lord to testify the grace of God.

[00:03:20] And it's a spirit of God who will bring them to faith. The pressure is off.

[00:03:24] It's not dependent on us. It's dependent on the spirit of God, bringing them to faith. All we do is invite people to come.

[00:03:32] These servants, right? They just invited folks to come.

[00:03:36] And the folks in the first invitation said, yeah, we're going to come.

[00:03:39] And then when everything was ready for the feast, they said, no, we're not going to come. Well, that's very much like life.

[00:03:45] Sometimes we think people are in the brink of coming to faith.

[00:03:48] I've ready to come to church. I've been working on this guy for about two months at Mount Hope Church inviting him to church.

[00:03:55] And there was a time when I thought, oh man, this guy is ready. He's ready to receive Jesus. The spirit of God has done its work.

[00:04:01] But then all of a sudden he said, I'm not coming.

[00:04:06] That happens, right? And it was so easy for me to try to take it personally.

[00:04:11] But I got to say, Lord, it's up to you. It's not up to me.

[00:04:14] And you can say the very same thing. Lord, it's not up to me. It's up to you.

[00:04:19] Right? Did I just say that wrong? I think I did.

[00:04:23] But you get the point. All right. So that is today's daily truth.

[00:04:27] I hope this was helpful today.

[00:04:33] And we want everybody to be saved. Right? We want everybody to have a we have to enjoy the pleasantness, the aroma, the sweet smelling fragrance,

[00:04:46] the peace, the surpasses all understanding, the joy that we have in our heart, knowing that God loves us and send us and send us and Jesus to die for us.

[00:04:55] We want everybody to know that.

[00:04:57] But sometimes when they don't come to faith, it's got to be on the Lord's timetable and not ours.

[00:05:03] So the only thing we can do is keep inviting, keep praying, keep looking for opportunities to testify, but leave it up to God.

[00:05:14] Let him do the work. All right? And that is today's daily truth. Have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[00:05:22] Thank you for tuning in to daily truths with Dave Olman.

[00:05:25] Pastor Dave Olman is the pastor of Mount Holt Church in Boulder, Colorado.

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[00:05:40] Come back tomorrow for your next daily truth.