What Jesus Did About Seeking Sinners Series

Someone once said, "Eyes that look are common, but eyes that see are rare." Someone else has said, "If we talked more to the Lord about sinners, then we might be able to talk to more sinners about the Lord." Perhaps we should pray again for an Acts 20:20 vision. A concern for our lost neighbors that would drive us to our knees for the souls of those around us and the raise us to our feet and place us on the path to our neighbor’s house with the good news of the gospel.

JESUS SOUGHT SINNERS AS THEY WERE. Just why did Jesus determine to go through Samaria? The story has a great sense of the urgency He obviously felt. "He must needs go through Samaria." (John 4:4) Although the route He took from Judea to Galilee was a more direct way, the Jews normally avoided it like a plague. They not only had no direct dealings with Samaritans, they would not even place their feet upon paths and places they felt had been polluted by Samaritan feet.

If there is one fact made plain in this incident it is that Jesus went and sat down on the well curb in Samaria because He knew this lost woman of Samaria needed Him and His salvation. But as things are worked out we can also see He knew that the whole city of Samaria needed to be saved and that this woman could be His witness there. It would not be presumptuous or in opposition to the teachings of the scriptures to assert that from the very beginning of all things it must have been God’s plan for her to encounter the Water of Life that day in that place. There is surely no luck nor are there any accidents in God’s eternal plan and purpose.

It is not significant that when Jesus told His followers to be witnesses in the world He spoke of Samaria being a priority, after Jerusalem and Judea? Consider also the overwhelming success and great revival experienced there when Phillip went there to preach the gospel, win souls and disciple them. Could Phillip’s spiritual success be at least partially attributed to this earlier soul winning effort of our Savior and the subsequent witness of the woman at the well and of those who came to know Jesus as Savior at that time?

We have just returned from a trip to West Wyalong and Campbelltown, New South Wales. I must confess that as I fellowshipped with these great people, my thoughts went back to some thirty-five or so years ago when we first arrived in Australia. I recalled the first souls who came to know the Lord there and the hundreds that were saved and baptized over the next twenty years and onward. Then I thought of their children, grandchildren, relatives, neighbors and friends who have also been saved. I thought of the thirty or so different lands from which they came in order for God to give them the glorious message of salvation. I thought of the many places some have moved on to since. As I looked around, I thought of the Christian School and the other churches that have come out of that church. I thought of the lives that had been changed by the grace of God and the effects of the gospel upon so many in so many different ways.