After Jesus heals a man born blind the truth about spiritual blindness takes center stage. This encounter makes it clear that a spiritual transformation has to occur in a person’s life so that he/she can become a follower of Jesus: they must have their spiritual eyes opened to see Jesus for who he is. We can faithfully share Christ but the Holy Spirit must open mind and hearts to the truth we are sharing.

The fear of rejection or failure often keeps Christians from sharing their faith more often. As we’ll see this week, Jesus even failed to win a person occasionally. Why this happened, and how Jesus responded can help us overcome any fear of rejection or failure we might have in sharing the good news with others. 

What does water from a well have to do with soul winning? In this message we’ll see Jesus lead a shame-filled woman to faith in him starting with a simple request concerning water from a well. When we know that all people have an unquenched inner thirst that only God can satisfy, as Jesus did with this woman, we have a powerful tool to help a person see their need for Christ. 

Jesus hung out with sinners and tax collectors! He even called a tax collector to be a disciple. Some people were shocked. Properly religious people didn’t associate with such riff-raff as Jesus was hanging out with.

As we try to learn from Jesus about making disciples, we have to learn the lesson Jesus illustrated in this morning’s passage: that we can’t be soul winners by hanging out with the saints. We have to hang out with lost people, too..

The greatest soul-winner of all time was Jesus. We will learn much about soul-winning from him. In this message we encounter Jesus calling four men to become full-time followers of him. They responded immediately and positively. We’ll see that soul-winning is not about Jesus being a charismatic person, but about what Jesus was inviting these men to experience: an on-going personal relationship with him and a mission worth giving everything to pursue.

Soul winning is inviting people to an exciting new life with Jesus. No mission could be more important or fulfilling.