'Oasis People' 

Look Up:     John 4:27- 42

Sermon preached by Dr. Wayne Poplin, Senior Pastor of
Carmel Baptist Church, Matthews, NC (Copyright 2008)   

INTRODUCTION:  Would you rather be known for bringing lunch to Jesus or a whole town to Him?  There is nothing wrong with bringing food to Jesus, but to be used to bring many people to Him is far better.  The latter is adding eternal value to our life.  What do we do during the week?  Work with figures, make sale calls, see patients, write contracts, work with clients, teach a class, shuttle children from place to place, run errands, grocery shop, etc.?  Between birth and death [doing all the ordinary but necessary things that pertain to the now] what do we do that brings eternal value to our lives and to somebody else’s life?   Where are we used to be oases for thirsty people?  What are we doing in somebody life what somebody did in ours?  We are here today because somewhere people—not just one but a number of them—were an oasis for us.  Mom, Dad, teachers, a grandparent, a friend, a neighbor—and others—were used of God in a way that you discovered your thirst and the reason for it and the answer to it.  Something about them made a difference for you.  Who are we doing that for?

            Let’s go back to a passage in John 4 where Jesus awakened a Samaritan woman to her thirst—and then she was used to awakened many in her town to their thirst.

            You would have thought that the disciples would have helped, but they didn’t.  They passed this thirsty woman on the way into town but had no impact. When they went into this town of thirsty people [seen later in John 4:30 , 39-40] they had no impact.   We will have little impact unless we learn the difference between what Jesus did and the disciples did.  I am convinced that the Samaritan woman would never have been reached by the disciples.   

            Jesus was burdened with people and the disciples were burdened with a project for Jesus [They had gone for food and were on a mission to please Him].  I would have  great conflict in stopping and helping a person in real need if it meant not getting here on time to lead in this worship service.  Being responsible is good, but I can get more burdened for a project for Jesus than the people that He may put in my path.  How many times do you hear in the New Testament that Jesus was burdened for people?

            When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them…[Matthew 9:36 ].

            When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them…[Matthew 14:14 ].

            Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, “I have compassion for these people…[Matthew 15:32 ].

            Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man…[Mark 1:41 ].

I think one of the transformations that Jesus wants to bring about in my life is with my eyes.  He wants me to live with His eyesight.  Without His eyes, people either become invisible to me or I see them totally different than He does. 

            Jesus saw the Samaritan woman as thirsty and the disciples, saw her as:

                                    A woman

                                    A Samaritan

                                    A sinner  

She was a woman [this was a society in which a woman would not be running for President].  She was a Samaritan [intermarried with displaced Assyrians—written off].  She was a sinner.  This ladies’ reputation may have preceded her.  The disciples are battling sexism, racism, elitism, and legalism.  When the disciples find Jesus talking to the woman, they say nothing.

            Just then His disciples returned and were surprised to find Him talking with a woman.  But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her” [John 4:27 ]?

            They said nothing, probably because they were afraid Jesus might have asked why they hadn’t spoken to her.  The reason was that they had all this prejudice in their heart and were judgmental.  Who wants to admit that?

Prejudice and being judgmental are the elephants in the room we don’t mention.   Who wants to admit it?

            What they felt toward her, she felt from them and saw it in their eyes.  That’s why they would never have reached this woman like Jesus did.  What she felt from them and saw in their eyes is what people can feel from us.  We can be so judgmental and prejudiced [if you aren’t, you can sit there quietly and pray for the rest of us while I talk about this].  Somewhere we got the idea that we were called to be soil analyzers than seed sowers.  And we do a good job with it.  If we appear [you may not be—but you are viewed as part of a group who is] to be judgmental we are not going to be oases for thirsty people, because we are going to drive people away rather than bring them near.  Nobody likes to be judged nor experience prejudice.

            Early in our marriage, when Brenda and I were in New Orleans , we made reservations at a fancy restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  Seminary students don’t have much money, so this was a real splurge.  But you save up and do those things on special occasions.  We got seated at the restaurant and a friendly, young waiter came to the table.  Friendly until…he asked if we wanted to start out the evening with cocktails.  I said:  “No thanks, we will skip that.”  Well, immediately things changed.  He was no longer friendly.  He was sizing me up as some weirdo or El-Cheapo and probably thought that his tip had just shrunk.  Then he sarcastically looked at me and asked:  “Well, what do you want?  Milk?”

            You want to know what I was thinking?  “Don’t you judge me, you little hot shot!”

            It is like that when people who don’t know me get around to asking me what I do.  I’m thinking—you don’t want to know what I do.  When I tell them, their expression changes and I know they are thinking—“Funs over.”  And I am thinking, “Your judgment of me is so wrong.”

            Imagine if you were out of town and dressed casually for a church service because you got the wrong information, and walked in among dressed up people.  You know the looks [you probably have given those looks before].  You feel their judgment.   And you are thinking, “Don’t you judge me.  I am a member of Carmel Baptist and I have more spirituality in my little finger than you have in your whole body.”

            Nobody likes to be judged and feel that kind of prejudicial treatment.   It drives people away.  The disciples would never have impacted the woman at the well because they did not see her as Jesus did.  They saw her as a woman, a Samaritan and a sinner.

            We see the weird and dyed hair, the tattoos, the beer, the pierced, the t-shirt with a weird message or bad image, the race, how affluent they look.  We hear the accent.  That’s it.  We see nothing else.  We hear nothing else.  We have nothing to say.  We have nothing to offer.  

            God wants to take us, people who have tasted His life-giving water—with our age, our circumstances, the age of our children, what we have experienced with our children, where we are working, what we have experienced in ups and downs, our divorce, our singleness, etc. and put us where we can impact somebody’s life.  He wants us, who were once thirsty, to be an oasis for another thirsty person. 

            How can we be more like Jesus and less like these disciple?

1. Understand who we were before Christ changed us.  We were in our sin.  We were enemies of God.  We were of no use to Him.

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.  He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.  He presented Himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.  And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway.  We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.  But God put His love on the line for us by offering His Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him [Romans 5:6-8, Message]. 

We , who were once of no use to Him, sing “Just As I Am…I Come” but expect people to get it together before they do come.. 

2. We need to understand our role.  We are not here to be judge and jury.  We are

here to be reconcilers.  We are here to be an oasis for thirsty people that Jesus puts in our pathway.     

3. As soon as I begin to feel judgmental or have prejudicial feelings, I need to say “Whoa.  Don’t go there.  This is a person God loves, created, and died for.”
4. Identify the areas of your prejudice and find someone in that group to build a

relationship with.  Put a face to the hair, the tattoo, the accent, etc.    

5. Be less concerned about behavior modification and more concerned that they find water for a thirsty soul.  If they meet the Lord, He will take care of the behavior modification. 

 Listen to what Jesus, who knows the heart and knows who comes across our path, said:

            I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for harvest [John 4:35 ].

            Do you see that around you?  Do I see that around me?  Do we see white harvest fields around us?  Jesus said they are there.  They must be.  What do we do?  Quit judging.  Confess our prejudices.  Love people.  Ask God to give you His eyes.  He has put us here as an oasis.  Our failure in evangelism is not a lack of knowledge.  It is most often a failure in love.  People want to know that we care before they care about what we know.  Jesus was not judgmental.  He met the Samaritan woman in her thirst and loved her.    

            You may think that you haven’t been a follower long enough to help anyone else.  You don’t even know that much about the Bible.  You don’t think you can be used.  You are the best person to impact your world.  This woman in John 4 knew very little [She knew that the Samaritans worshiped on that mountain, that the Jews worshiped in Jerusalem and that a Messiah was coming].  But she knew that somebody had put their finger on her thirst and offered her what quenched it.  She went back to her town and simply told them what had happened. 

            Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony [John 4:39 ]. 

Fresh from the well, she was the best person to impact her world. 

            This is never a solo mission.  All kinds of things may have gone before that you don’t know about.  But now you are there and either sowing or reaping can happen.

            Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.  Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor [John 4:37 -38].

            Things have happened that you and I are not aware of .  We just need to be available to do what He wants us to do. 

            The final thing that I want us to see is the consuming satisfaction that comes when we are used as an oasis for thirsty people. 

            “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Him Who sent me and to finish His work [John 4:34 ]. 

            Meeting Jesus and believing on Him quenches a thirst put in our lives by God.  Being an oasis for someone else brings another satisfaction all of its own.

            There is a bit of current research that is very encouraging to me.  It says that even though many have a negative opinion about the church [and Christians], they believe that Jesus makes a difference in a person’s life.  If we were just more like Him, what a difference that could make in somebody’s life!

            Let’s say:  “Lord, if you can take me and use me to make a difference in somebody’s life, I am going to be on the lookout.”