Don't Wear Out Your Welcome - Bible Baptist Church

I’ve never heard a sermon or study on the verses and subject I’m going to talk to you about today.

How to know you’ve worn out your welcome:

Truth of the matter

Guests are like fish, after a day they both stink.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Good fences make good neighbors.
Don’t take advantage of peoples’ hospitality. They’ll stop listening long before they kick you out. And it’s your job to pay attention to that.
Luke 11:5-8 – the point of the parable is that God the Father is a good Father and not just a sleeping neighbor, but this parable assumes a basic truth. People will say or do almost anything to get rid of you if you become a pest.

Be considerate of others

You need to be sensitive to people.
In our current state of communication technology, you have the ability to insert yourself into people’s lives at an exhausting rate. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you need to.
While people may need to hear what you have to say, you can lose the ability to say it in someone’s life because of HOW you insert yourself into their lives.
Dumb example but here it is: If I pick the lock to get into your home at midnight, wake you up, and say, You need to hear about Jesus Christ!! What I’m saying may be true, but I’ve lost any ability to communicate with you because of HOW I’ve entered your life.
Quit talking and listen
- Earn the ability to speak to people.
- “High maintenance” friends who demand to be seen and heard on a regular basis become a nuisance. You see the text message from them and think, Not again. You see their number come up on the phone and say, Not again.
Leave people wanting to see you again, rather than wishing you’d never come back.

Constant invasions of privacy make people tired of people entering their life

In the economy, the more abundant an item is, the less valuable it becomes. People can be the same way.
I’ve had to learn this. I’d always make people’s rejection of tracts a matter of wickedness and that’s not true. The souls you and I talk to are marketed everyday. They are solicited everyday. People may not be rejecting Jesus Christ because they didn’t take your tract. They may just not want to feel marketed. Some people’s responses are not anti-god, they’re anti-marketing.
Not every rejection of tracts and the gospel is a matter of wickedness
I want to help you empathize with people and be less cynical.
1 Peter 4:15 – the range of sin is murderer to busybody. What a spectrum! You know what the spectrum is? It’s respecting someone else’s life.