Sermon Cloud

TEXT

Luke 10:25-37: "And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'  26 He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?'  27 And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.'  29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'  30 Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.  31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.  32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.  34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.  35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, "Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back."  36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?'  37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.' And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise.'"

INTRODUCTION

We've been exploring a series over the last several months called Encountering Jesus.  The purpose of this series is for us to come to see Jesus more clearly and to understand His core teaching about Himself, this world, and the main message He came to deliver.

As we've been looking at the various conversations and parables of Jesus, we've been spending our time in the Gospels, but most of our time has been focused on the Gospel of Luke.  Luke was a physician who wrote his account after speaking with eyewitnesses and tracking down the various accounts of the things Jesus accomplished.  Luke tells us in chapter one that he wrote this account so that we might have "certainty concerning the things you've been taught" (Luke 1:4). 

Luke then spends the first nine chapters teaching us who Jesus is.  Who is this man named Jesus that the wind and seas obey Him?  Who is this man named Jesus who forgives sins?  These are the kinds of questions that Luke is answering.  From chapter ten until chapter 19, Luke basically moves from answering who He is and begins to tell us what it means to follow Jesus.  In other words, if the first nine chapters about Jesus are true, what does it mean to follow Him and to be His disciple? 

Chapter ten begins by showing us that all disciples are messengers of Jesus.  Every disciple is given the Gospel, and this news that has reached them to is to move through them and from them to all those around them, urging everyone to believe the good news.  Then, towards the end of this chapter, we see what it means to not only live as disciples who are gospel ministers with a message, but also as disciples who are gospel ministers of mercy. 

This pattern of message and mercy go hand and hand in the New Testament as a way of showing to the world the truth of the gospel.  Gospel mercy becomes a non-verbal way of showing the gospel message is true.  In Jesus' mind the two go hand in hand and should never be separated, even if in our minds they are not joined.  If the gospel message is true, that God has had great mercy upon us, then gospel mercy to others should become a natural response.

This connection is so significant that the very structure of this passage joins together two questions: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" (v.25) and "Who is my neighbor?" (v. 29).  The passage begins with a question about how to obtain salvation and then moves into a parable to answer the question of who our neighbor is that we're supposed to love as much as we love ourselves. 

Now, that's a loaded and weighty statement, isn't it?  Because if we're honest, we'll have to stop right there and admit that it doesn't feel natural to us.  We'll have to admit that loving the unlovely doesn't feel as if it just oozes out of us with ease. 

Have you ever stopped to ask why that is?  Why is it unnatural to us?  Do you think the gospel you've believed is some how less powerful than the Bible teaches us, so there must be something wrong with God or the gospel?  Or do you believe that perhaps you must not really be a Christian because deeds of mercy to the unlovely aren't natural to you?  Maybe you're even tempted to diminish God's call for us to be gospel ministers of mercy by offering up various intellectual or practical reasons for why you're exempt. 

Do you find yourself falling on one side or the other of these questions?  Do you blame God out of frustration or do you blame yourself and feel insecure about your salvation?  Or do you find yourself, even now, beginning to give reasons for why this isn't really necessary?  Or, are you like many who bounce back and forth between these reasons and are tired of feeling like a ping pong ball? 

So how do we bring gospel mercy to others?  What does Jesus think about this and what is His solution to this problem?  Let's dig into the story of the Good Samaritan.

The Question

Verse 25:  "And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'"

This "lawyer" or "law expert" that stood up was not merely a civil lawyer; he was someone who was a religious scholar.  His responsibility was to study, teach and ensure that the 613 laws in the Old Testament were preserved and obeyed.  This man had an obvious zeal for God's word because these lawyers would have most of these laws, if not all, committed to memory and could easily teach on any of them.  They wrote commentary on the laws and spent their lives rigorously studying them. 

This man would have been well-respected and honored by the people.  Here you have the scene: Jesus is teaching and a crowd is gathered around Him when a man, a well respected religious scholar, stands up to try and test Jesus by asking Him a question.

The word ‘test' actually has a negative context for this sentence which would give a clearer meaning.  This man stood up to ‘trap' Jesus.  Clearly this man feels it's necessary to try and shut Jesus down or prove He's not as smart as He thinks he is.

But why?  Because Jesus was constantly welcoming in people who were law breakers with low morality, people who were ritually unclean, people who were broken and in desperate need. He's always welcoming in sinners. 

This law expert wanted to pull Jesus into a trap by asking a question about eternal life and what he must to inherit it.  It's easy to see that this man isn't asking because he really wants Jesus to give him the key to eternal life.  Instead, he wants Jesus to incriminate Himself by showing everyone that He really doesn't respect the Law of God.  By the simple fact that Jesus is so welcoming to others who are a mess, the unlovely, it must be that Jesus has had to lower the standard of God's holy requirements. 

‘So Jesus, what must I do to get this eternal life you speak about?'  He was expecting Jesus to tell him that it really didn't matter whether he honored the law or not, just go to God and he'll accept you the way you are.  He wants to trap Jesus into admitting this.

However, the Master Teacher has a trap laid for this scholar.  A trap of love to capture his heart and the hearts of those listening, including us!  Jesus responds to this man's question about inheriting eternal life by asking him a question:

Verse 26: "He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?'"

This is a big question.  To ask a law expert what's written in the law and how does he interpret it is pressing a point home.  The lawyer could either recount all 613 laws or give Jesus the heart of the entire law by providing a summary.  That's why Jesus says ‘How do you read it?' because He's asking for a point of the whole law.

The lawyer does a good job summarizing the entire law by answering Jesus.

Verse 27: "And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.'"

This is an accurate and incredible summary of the entire OT Law.  This man is saying that the point of the whole OT law was to bring you to love the Lord your God with every fiber of your being, to love Him with every ounce of your energy and all of your resources at the depth of your being.  To have your mind so captivated by Him that when we have free moments when our mind is allowed to wander, it should naturally gravitate towards Him.  In other words, the law teaches us that we are to be consumed with love for God in every way. 

Q- What would it look like for God's people to love Him with such single-minded purpose and power?  Do we love like this?  Who can say yes without having your spouse elbow you, or your friends move away because they're afraid you're going to be struck by lightening? 

Where do our hearts find their greatest passions met?  What do we cast our affections upon?  What do our hearts yearn for to bring us joy?  That's the god we're worshipping with all our heart.

Where does our soul look for its greatest significance and purpose?  Where do we inwardly gravitate when we're desperate for approval?  Where do we spend ourselves completely to give us a sense of our greatest hope and meaning in this world?  That's the god we worship with all our soul.

What do our minds fill their imagination with?  What do we think, meditate, and worry about and what are our thoughts consumed by?  Whatever consistently grips our imagination and attention, whatever demands our continued thoughts is our god.  It's what we really are worshipping with all our mind. We're to love Him so much that He dominates our solitude and fills us with absolute contentment like nothing else.

What do we spend most of our focused strength protecting and preserving?  Career, family, or is it our hobbies that we're willing to fully expend ourselves on and feel overjoyed to do so?  That's the god we're worshipping with all our strength?

Loving God in this way is everything He asked from the people He made.  He wanted absolutely nothing less from them and He desires nothing less from us.  It's what we were designed for. We were designed to love Him.

If this wasn't enough for us, there is a second part to this summary: loving your neighbor as yourself.

You are called to meet the needs of your neighbor with the same intensity, the same joy, the same speed, the same power, and the same force that you meet your own needs.  When you are hungry, you eat.  When you're neighbor is hungry, your heart is to be so filled with love for them that when you see them unable to eat, you're willing to feed them with the same quality and quantity of food you would want to eat yourself.  When you are without shelter and safety, you find it.   And so, when your neighbor is without shelter and safety, you should work with as much energy and focus to provide shelter for them as you do for yourself, etc.  When you share your thoughts and emotions with someone, do you hope that they would work hard to try and understand you instead of jumping to conclusions and judge you?  The energy that you desire others to understand you with is the same energy with which you should be attempting to lovingly understand your neighbor.   

To love your neighbor as yourself is more than just waving when we drive by their house.  It's to spend yourself with your time, money, safety and resources in the same way that you do for yourself. 

When we splice up the law into little bits, we miss the point of the whole law.  The whole law was given so that we would love Him and others.  That's the summary of it.  That's the point of it.  The law is a description of relationship.  It describes for us the kind of love that God is passionate that we have.  If we only focus on the details of the law, we can put them on a list and start to check them off one by one.  But when we look at the entire purpose of the law, we come to see the incredible weight of it. 

Jesus gives this same summary in Matthew 22:

Matthew 22:37-40:  "...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  38 This is the great and first commandment.  39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

Jesus shows us from that passage that on this summary, all the Law and Prophets hang.  Every fulfillment and basis for all the Prophets and all the Law is based upon this kind of love.

Jesus then responds to this man's summary:

Verse 28: "And he said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.'"

What in incredible teacher Jesus is.  He set a trap so that by this man's own words he would see that he is the one who has diminished God's law.  Jesus is essentially exposing the lawyer's inability to keep the Law. 

Of course this man should love the One who made him and sustains him and gives him every breath he has.  Of course he should love his neighbor with the same love he desires for himself.  This man doesn't disagree with this statement. 

Remember, this man asked the question ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?'  This is Jesus' answer: ‘do this and you'll live.'  Is Jesus telling this man that it's possible for him to keep law and be saved?  Is Jesus teaching a salvation by social justice?  Of course not.  Not only does this not fit with everything that Jesus keeps saying about repentance and belief to get into the Kingdom, but it would shatter the hopes of all the sinners who are now following Jesus.  What hope would they have? 

Jesus is essentially teaching that the Law is a way of life, but it isn't the way to have eternal life.  Jesus lets this call to keep the law perfectly just linger out there.  He doesn't qualify it, He doesn't comment on it at this point.  He just lets it sit like a heavy cloud on the shoulders of this lawyer. 

But this lawyer is smart.  He's quick on his feet and sees the trap that Jesus is laying, so he responds back to try and justify his initial question.  In other words, he's trying to do what Jesus did to him.  Instead of agreeing with Jesus or answering Jesus' statement, he asks Jesus a question.

Verse 29: "But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'"

What does justify mean again?  It means to be in the right.  To either be counted as right or treated as right.  This man is trying to justify himself and show that he's in the right with God and certainly with Jesus. 

So what does he do?  He does exactly what all the law experts did when they gathered; he begins to argue details about the law.  Did you see that?  Instead of sticking with the summary he gave, he brings in a problem of interpretation by asking a question that everyone debated over, ‘And who is my neighbor?'  Why do you think the law experts did this?  Because the basis of their lives was built upon a belief that God accepts us if we keep all His rules.  Since law experts saw the problem of keeping all of God's Laws, they began to debate what they really meant.  They began to chip away at the main point of the law by getting wrapped in debate on the details. 

If God accepts us based upon our performance of His law, then in order to perform well, you have to lower the standard and meaning of the law so that it's manageable. 

Jesus just exposed this man.  Jesus agreed with his summary and is saying, "Okay, so go ahead and do it and you'll have the eternal life you're looking for." 

This man begins to feel the pressure and weight and tries to switch the focus off of him and onto the law.  Alright Jesus, then tell me who my neighbor is. 

At this point the Jews had come to diminish the law so much that your neighbor was not a neighboring nation, it wasn't even a neighbor next door, but only one who had the same religious background and beliefs as you did.  If they didn't, then you could live right next door to them and didn't have to treat them with this kind of love.  They were unworthy of being loved because they didn't keep the law themselves.

So Jesus, since this is such a widely debated subject by thousands of religious leaders for centuries, explain to me how you're going to get out of this question?

Jesus responds by telling a story!  Isn't he a great teacher?  He's saying ‘Okay, let me tell you a story about a man...'

Remember, now the focus has turned from ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?' to ‘Who is my neighbor?'  Jesus is happy to respond because he knew if the man really understood the first part of the summary of loving God, then he'd be willing to live out of that kind of relationship by loving his neighbors.  Jesus is teaching the absolute core of what it means to love your neighbor. 

The Parable

Verse 30: "Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.'"

This is a certain man, which is another way of saying "any man."  This road was a treacherous road.  It dropped from about 3,000 feet above sea level to over 700 feet below sea level.  It's the lowest point on earth.  This road was nicknamed ‘the bloody way' because so many murders and robberies took place there.  It was a perfect place to hide behind rocks and in caves and pounce upon a lone traveler to strip him and leave him for dead. 

Leaving from Jerusalem to Jericho had a negative connotation in the OT.  It could mean to be taken away in slavery or to be running from Jerusalem and into sin.    

Verses 31-32: "Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.  32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side." 

Q-Why do you think the Priest and Levite looked, but then quickly looked away and continued without stopping? 

A-Because helping the man would be risky, and helping the man would be costly, messy and would make them dirty. 

Q- What do we do instinctively do when we walk by a street person who is begging and looks sick and smells? 

A-We instinctively look away. 

Q- Why?

A- We know that to look might lead to a feeling of compassion that leads to commitment.  That's why we're so love phobic, and it's also why we're so afraid of looking too closely and getting to involved.  We're fearful that if we do we'll have to pay.  Loving means losing control of our schedule, our money, and our time.  When we love we cease to be the master and become a servant. 

Verses 33-35: "But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.  34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.  35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.'" 

This is like telling a story of the ‘Good Nazi.'  That's how it would have sounded to this first-century Jew. 

To get the similar punch it would be like a well known member of Al Qaeda stopping to help a wounded American soldier and bringing him to an army base.  Can you imagine how he would have been treated?  Or like a Plains Indian in the 1800's stopping to bringing a scalped white man on his horse to a saloon in Dodge City and paying for all of his expenses, checking him into a room and staying the night to care for him.  Or, how about a black man who stops to help a clan member who just left a rally and was robbed and left for dead on the side of the road, only to bring him back to the rally covered in this man's blood.  Do you get the shock now?  This is scandalous.

Jews wouldn't even eat from the same bowl as a Samaritan.  Samaritans were considered racial and religious half-breeds.  They had perverted the Word of God and had sought to establish their own Temple and their own system of sacrifice.  They married with non-Jews and blended non-Jewish religion in with Paganism. 

Verses 36-37: "‘Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?'  37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.' And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise.'"

So who really is my neighbor?

If it's true that Jesus is calling His disciples to live and love in this radical way and to do so even with people who we would normally avoid or consider our enemy, how are we going to do it?  How in the world is it possible to love like this?  How do our hearts change to live out this call from Christ?

Really, the question we should ask is how is it we'll be motivated to love like this Samaritan?  Isn't it true that if you had a neighborhood where a few of the houses lived like this you'd want to move there? 

So how do we get the motivation to live this out?  This parable shows us a couple of ways to approach this problem.  One is inadequate and the other is fully adequate.  One is insufficient, the other is fully sufficient. 

The first way to try and get people to live like this is through morality.  It can be secular or religious morality. 

Secular morality works on your pride and guilt.  It says, "Don't be like those other people who are selfish.  You're better than that."  Or, "If you're really tolerant and mature you'll care about other people.  Only selfish people refuse to care for the homeless or the environment." 

Religious morality typically works on your fear, will and emotions.  It says, "Jesus said that if you don't give to the poor you're going to be the goats He separates from the sheep and you'll be sent to hell."  Or, "You should care for the poor because the Bible says so." Or, "Don't you see all the starving poor?  How can you not care?  Look at their plight.  Give to them because you have so much and they have so little." 

Now, these may seem different, but the truth is they're quite similar.  They all can be done without a changed heart towards the poor.  They can all be done without legitimate love for them.  Every major world religion emphasizes care for the poor.  They are motivating you by tweaking your will or your emotions. 

But Jesus places in the parable two people who are incredibly moral.  These are the people that would have been responsible for caring for the poor in a professional way.  The priests were responsible for distributing alms for the poor.  Jesus is showing us that people who are moral and who do their duty out of a religious obligation can and will do so when it is their job.  But when it really costs them, when it is a risk to their lives and their safety, when it means that they have to lay themselves out in the way Jesus is demanding out of mercy, they can't do it.  They'll walk by on the other side.

Jesus is showing us that morality can't take you very far.  It changes you in the short term; it can get you to stop doing certain things.  But to go deep into a place of mercy for someone is going to require something more than just your duty to get it done. 

How are you feeling up this point in the message?  Are you feeling guilty for not caring for the poor the way Jesus is calling you to?  Are you uneasy about His command to go and do likewise?  Stop!  Guilt isn't going to take you where Jesus wants you to go. 

Jesus isn't trying to make you feel only guilt so you'll pick yourself up by your bootstraps and make it happen on your own strength.  Jesus is showing us that the key to the parable is where you find yourself in this parable.  Where does He place the characters?  Where does He place the religious lawyer?  Where do you see yourself in this story?

Jesus isn't placing this lawyer or you in the role of the Samaritan and the Samaritan in the role of the half-dead man.  It's tempting to assume that Jesus is talking about a person just like you as the good one riding along the way and you saw someone in desperate need and dismounted from your noble steed with your clothes shining brightly and hair flowing in the wind like Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall.  And you took pity on this poor helpless soul, so you lifted the man up with one hand and placed him on your white horse and ran along side him all the way to the inn.  Now, go and do likewise. 

The lawyer never would have responded to this telling of the story.  He would have heard this rendition and would have said "what?"  There is no way I'd stop for a Samaritan.  This man is an enemy of the Jews.  He's a heretic.  His kind have completely perverted the Bible and deserve to be stoned to death.  Not only that, he's probably going to die or is already dead.  I can't touch him or I'll be unclean.  The best thing to do is ride over him with my horse and put him out of his misery.  That's the merciful thing. 

Instead, Jesus puts a Jew on the road half-dead, and a Samaritan on the horse.  He turns the story around and places the enemy in the role of the hero and the hero in the role of the man broken, robbed, bleeding, without resources and dying. 

Here's the question the law expert is being faced with: ‘What if you were the dying man? What if you were the one so beaten that you can't even cry out for help?  What if someone who is your sworn enemy came along and without even a thought of his own safety, his own loss, came down from his horse and bound up your wounds with tender hands and poured oil and wine upon you, picked you up and placed your bloody body upon his animal and brought you to an inn, paid for a room, stayed with you all night and gave the inn keeper enough money to last until he could return to ensure you're made whole again?  What then?  Would you receive this act of free mercy?  Would you receive this kind of neighborly love from someone who is under no compulsion or responsibility to do so?  Would you want it? 

You see, this man isn't simply being told to be like the Samaritan and reach across the racial barriers to help the needy.  He isn't really giving him a "do it" but a "done it."  In other words, He's saying that what will really answer his question, what will really give him eternal life is if someone comes to bear his burden for him.  What would you do if someone gave this kind of mercy and free grace to you? 

Only when you come to see yourself as the man who's breathing his last along the side of the road who received love from an enemy, will you ever be able to get up and go love others in the same way.  Only then will you be able to say to those who are in need, "I'm your neighbor because someone was a neighbor to me."  You'll never be a minister of mercy to others until you are a recipient of this kind of mercy. 

Then Jesus asks the lawyer another question: "Which of these...proved to be a neighbor...?"  He didn't say, "This is your neighbor."  Until you get this, until you see that you need a neighbor to give you this kind of mercy, you'll never give it in return. 

Where do we find this kind of neighbor?  Everyone who has come to truly believe in the gospel message gets this.  We all know we're self-fixers.  We're self-justifiers.  We were all like this man who wants to justify himself.  We all think we're the Good Samaritan.  Even if we admit we've fallen into hard times, we all tried to pick ourselves up and heal ourselves and bind our own wounds. 

For those of us who've tried to justify ourselves through our own goodness and efforts, we've come to realize just how much this beats us up.  Just how much this cuts our conscience and leaves us weary, waylaid, exhausted, and half-dead.  Whatever you try to justify yourself with-power, pleasure, comfort, control, approval from others, acceptance by your peers, or any other thing-it only leaves us bloodied on the side of the road and dying spiritually.

But for those who've come to Jesus in faith came to grips with the truth that they could never bring themselves to the inn, heal themselves, or pay their way.

Instead, Jesus Christ came into our world, traveled our very road, came down from his exalted place, and owing us nothing but rejection, looked at us and had compassion upon us.  The word compassion is used more about Jesus' emotional life than any other word.  When Jesus came to us, He knew that to do so wasn't just risking His life, it was going to cost Him His life, and yet He came anyway. 

He traveled the bloody road, he took our burden, our sores, our wounds of sin and guilt and placed the weight upon Himself.  He paid the debt and has promised that He'll come back to ensure that what He began is completed. 

And not until we see that Jesus has become a true neighbor to us, will we ever be a true neighbor to someone else.  In other words, to the degree you believe that you were the man on the side of the road, to the degree that you believe that Jesus came to give you free grace and it cost Him His very life to reach you and heal you, to the degree that you see that Jesus came to love you, the unlovely, to that same degree you'll be the kind of neighbor Jesus is calling you to be.  Until you see this, until you taste this, until you believe that Jesus did this for you, you'll not be a gospel minister of mercy to others and you'll always struggle to love the unlovely. 

This is how Jesus can say to this man and to us, "You go, and do likewise."  Jesus can say this because He was willing to first hear His Father's voice which told Him, "Go and bind up their wounds, pay their debt, and give your life."