The Good Samaritan

I want you to turn to Luke's Gospel chapter 10, and I'm gonna read verses 25 through 37. Make some general comments about this, and then we'll dig into it just a little deeper. Amen? All right. Luke 10, verse 25. "'And behold, a certain lawyer stood up "'and put him to test, saying, "'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' "'And he said to him, "'What is written in the law?

"'How do you read it?' "'And he answered and said, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, "'with all your soul, with all your strength, "'and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.'" "'And he said to him, "'You have answered correctly. "'Do this, and you will live.' "'But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "'And who is my neighbor?' "'And Jesus replied and said, "'A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, "'and he fell among robbers. "'And they stripped him and beat him "'and went off leaving him half dead. "'And by chance, a certain priest was going down on the road.'" Boy, that was his day, wasn't it?

Just by chance. "'And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. "'And likewise a Levite also. "'When he came to the place and saw him, "'passed by on the other side. "'But a certain Samaritan who was on a journey "'came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion. "'And he came to him and bandaged up his wounds, "'pouring oil and wine on them. "'And he put him on his own beast "'and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

"'And on the next day, he took out two denarii "'and gave them to the innkeeper and said, "'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, "'when I return, I will repay you. "'Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor "'to the man who fell into the robber's hands? "'And he said, the one who showed mercy towards him. "'And Jesus said to him, go and do the same.'" You know, this is known as the Good Samaritan story. If somebody said to you that you're a Good Samaritan, you'd know exactly what that meant, wouldn't you? Today in the secular world and even the church world, this is the most known story of the entire Bible. We've all heard that growing up about the Good Samaritan.

The science of sociology and psychology pillared their expressions on one of their anchors of truth. Politicians are notorious for alluding to this story in their speeches.

You've heard it, haven't you? How they allude to this story. How many salutatorian speeches, valedictorian speeches, have you heard that refer to the expression of this story? We've heard them over and over and over. If you were to sum this up, some people would say this story is about good people who demonstrate a good action, yield a foundation for goodness, and that's a good thing. That's what we'd say about that. And none of us would be against that, would we?

But let me tell you something. That is not what this story is about. If you've concluded that's what this story is all about, that's not what this story is primarily about. Let me give you three summarizing statements about this story, and then Kim will flip up on it and we'll get to the meat of the story. First, this story is a report of eternal salvation. It is the first and foremost a story about salvation. A certain lawyer stood in front of Jesus saying, teacher, what do I do?

Now, I underscored that word do. What do I do to inherit eternal life? That's the context of this story, isn't it? It's a question about eternal life. It's a story about salvation. This is the contextual setting of this story. You know, guys, I can't tell you how many times I've heard liberal scholars and progressive preachers and unconcerned teachers and others take the application of this story way outside its borders.

But it's still a question we ought to ask, isn't it? Absolutely. What must I do to inherit eternal life? We need to wrestle with something beyond ourselves. Eternal life. This is a story about salvation. Secondly, it is a resistance to truth.

Other synonyms for resistance are opposition and insurrection. This inquiry of this corrupt lawyer was to try to force Jesus into a position of an insurrectionist, a false teacher. But the true insurrection here was this scribe's self-righteousness, his refusal to look at himself. This lawyer's inquiry is to put Jesus on trial and his motive to justify himself speaks volumes to us about his own self-righteousness. You know, I wonder sometimes, is this our approach to Jesus, where we try to justify our lives and our lifestyles and our actions? Thirdly, it is a relational evangelism story. Not one time did Jesus disregard this man's inquiries nor disgrace him publicly.

Did you notice that? Not one time did he ignore his questions nor try to embarrass him. Yet Jesus offers this man the invitation to really love God and to love his neighbor and to even love his enemies. The invitation to fulfill the law by being merciful to all. Let me ask you a question. Are you an imager of mercy, an imager of grace? I wanted to say that up front so you'd have that in your mind when we look at the meat of this story.

The story is in verses 30 through 35. I'm not gonna reread that. You can go read it yourself. The story itself has five characters. Did you notice that? First was the robbers. The Jericho Road was notorious for being a treacherous road to travel and a dangerous road because of robbers.

There were 17 miles that separated Jerusalem and Jericho. Jerusalem stood 2,600 feet above sea level. We're about 3,200 here on the plains, aren't we? It stood 2,600 feet, almost like being on the South Plains. Jericho was 800 feet below sea level. There was deep valleys on either side of this road, one being known as the Valley of the Shadow of Death. You ever heard that before? Psalm 23.

And the road often was called the Bloody Road to Death. It was a great place for professional robbers to hang out, the cartel. Secondly in this story is the man assaulted. Now we know very little about this man other than he was traveling on the Jericho Road and that he was probably a man of means. You know, robbers don't usually rob poor people, do they? These robbers were the modern-day mafia cartel. There were caves all down this road they could hide in.

They had probably stopped this man and knew what was in his purse. Also, because of the cultural context of the story, most biblical historians and even secular historians consider this man to be Jewish. He was a Jew passing down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Thirdly, there's the priest. Every priest, now hear this, every priest was from the tribe of Levi, one of the 12 tribes of Israel. Levi was the third son of Jacob and Leah. Moses and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi.

His tasks were twofold, to represent God to the people and the people to God. That was his personal task. This representation flowed from an inward devotion, supposedly repentance, confession, belief, and faith and an outward demonstration, love in action, to fulfilling the two great commandments. If you grew up around the church, you grew up hearing these, didn't you? Love God, love others like you love yourselves. That in essence summed up the entire Mosaic Law. You could take all the laws and the additional 613 that were added.

And if you summed it all up, it was meant that you should love God. That would mean with devotion, faith, repentance, confession, establishing a relationship and out of that would flow a love for all people. The priest was on the road. He saw this bloody beaten man and passed by on the other side. His devotion and demonstration did not show up that day. He failed the test miserably. You and I could conclude he did not love this man nor have compassion because he did not really love God.

1 John 4, 8, John writes all about loving God and loving others in his epistle. In chapter four, verse eight, he said, the one who does not love does not know God. Well, that's pretty straightforward, isn't it? The one who does not love does not know God for God is love. Now this priest, in my mind, he knew all about God, but he did not know God. There's a world of difference between knowing about him and knowing him personally. There was the Levite.

So I told you a minute ago that every priest was a Levite, but let me say this, but not every Levite was a priest. However, they were tied to the priesthood and to the temple. They were, in essence, servants of the priesthood and the temple. They were the workers there. They too, without question, knew the Mosaic law backwards and forwards. The Bible says about this Levite that he saw this bloody beaten man and he ignored him. Now, this priest and this Levite should have known better, shouldn't they?

Once again, we can conclude as we did about the priest. There's no love for God here, is there? Because there's no relationship with him. And then comes along the Samaritan. I'm not going to go into a leaky discussion about the origin of the ethnic label Samaritan. That'd take us all day to look at that. But just know this, a Samaritan was a mixture of Jew and Assyrian.

They were considered half-breeds by the Jews. They landed with the name Samaritan and settled in the land across the border from Israel. They actually accepted the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. But they reconstructed the forms and the rituals of worship. And they even built their own temple on another mountain other than the mountain of God. They were literally a dirty word to the Jews. You remember when they accused Jesus of being a false teacher?

They called him a Samaritan who was demon-possessed. They lumped all that together. Jesus, you're a Samaritan. Well, Jesus was far from being a Samaritan. But it was a dirty word. They were an abomination and considered to be a Jew's enemy. There was no love between Jew and Samaritan.

And let me tell you something, it went both ways. They both hated each other. Now, here's the shocking fact about this Samaritan. He saw this bloody man beaten and half dead. He felt compassion for him. He felt compassion for him. He had an inward feeling in his gut about that man.

There was something there that caused him to feel emotion deeply for this man. He came over to him. He didn't walk around him. He didn't step over him. The Bible says he came over to him. He touched him. He touched him.

Let me say that again. He touched him. When's the last time you touched your enemy? He bandaged his wounds. He used his own oil and wine to soothe and heal the wounds. The Bible used the word that he poured out here. The word poured out means without restraint.

He lavishly poured out his expensive oil and his expensive wine on this man's wounds. He put him on his own animal. He brought him to an inn. He personally took care of him overnight. He paid the innkeeper not only for that night, but if you do the math on what a denarii would be that time, it would mean that he paid for two more months in that inn. And then he promised to pay more if needed when he passed by. He made sure he was cared for and healed.

You hear that? This is absolutely shocking to Jews and Samaritans that could have been listening to this story. This lawyer, I'm going to tell you, he turned red-faced when he heard this story.

He got angry. Let me tell you something. When compassion and mercy show up together, it's quite shocking. Have you ever been shocked by the grace of God in your life? You know, the Bible says that we are enemies of God until we come to Him in repentance and confess Him and accept Him and build that relationship with Him. We come to Him as enemies. Have you ever been shocked by the grace of God for you?

Have you ever been shocked and even shocked others by being merciful? That's a good question, isn't it? Look at the story's conversation.

It's in verses 25-29. After this lawyer put Jesus to test inquiring what He must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus, out of respect for this man's positions, being Himself an expert in the law, basically says, Well, Mr. Lawyer, surely you know the answer to your own question.

What do you say it is? And this wise lawyer answered, He knew the Old Testament. He was an expert of mosaic law. He said, You love God with all your being, and you love others like you love yourself. He thought he'd done that. Literally deceived himself.

Jesus commends him though. He says to this expert, Boy, you've answered it correctly. But then he doesn't stop there. He tells him, Do this, and you will live. You see what Jesus knows about this man? That he's never done this. And in his own strength, he never will. Jesus had trapped him.

Either this man admits he has failed, thus opening himself up for another conversation, where Jesus would have explained to him about humility and repentance, a believing faith, a trust in God, and the grace of God that saves without works. That conversation could have backed in here. But this so-called expert of the law sidesteps that conversation by diverting to another question. You ever been caught by the truth? Somebody tells you the truth, and you know it's true about yourself, and then you just sidestep it and ask another question? To take the focus of what you're fixing to have to deal with? That's exactly what this man does.

He sidesteps that conversation by diverting to another question in order to, the Bible said here, justify himself. It was probably a mocking question. Okay, Jesus, tell me who my neighbor is. Here's what I want you to grab from this conversation. This scribe's heart is so full of self-righteousness that he has deceived himself into thinking that he's perfect. Have you ever sidestepped the truth about yourself? You ever diverted to another question when you knew the question was right in front of you and you needed to answer?

The story's application, verses 36 through 37. Jesus redirects this lawyer's question of who is my neighbor to who proved to be neighborly. You see that? Boy, he redirects. He's a good lawyer himself, isn't he? What does a lawyer do? He gets up there and he redirects.

Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands? And he said, he answered, the one who showed mercy toward him. Now, I want you to notice this. He didn't say the Samaritan that showed mercy. His self-righteousness would not allow him to do that, would it? He couldn't be honest enough to say the guy I hate, the dirty word. He'll not give him credit, will he?

And then Jesus said a second time, I want you to think about this. Go and do the same thing. Now, here's what I want you to see here. Jesus gave this guy another chance. You see that? He gave it before the story, didn't he? When this man says, oh, I love God and I love my neighbor.

Now, you got to understand that he had defined neighbor is only those who look just like him. Now, in this story, the priest and the Levite, they know this man is a Jew over there going down this road. They won't even spend time and energy and money and care on their own kind. Well, he doesn't look like us. He's not a priest. He's not a Levite. He gave it before the story.

Do this and you'll live. And then he gave it after the story. Is that not a second chance? Okay, you've answered up here. Obviously, you're not looking at your own self-righteous problem. So, let me tell this story and you answer who proved neighborly. And then I'll give you another chance. Hear me.

His invitation will never cease in giving you chances to come to him. He doesn't just only give two. He gives three and he gives four and he gives five. You ever been sitting in your pickup or sitting in your car or your house and thought, I'm just a miserable rat. I might as well throw in the towel.

And Jesus says, huh? I'll give you another chance. Guys, it's never too late. It's never too late to not respond to God. Now, here's the conclusion of this. And I just, I'm going to read Matthew 5, 43 through 48. Kim, put it up on the screen.

I want you to see this. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. They had turned into hating Samaritans as a good thing. They were enemies. And they concluded God hates them so we can hate them. Boy, that was a distortion of the law. But you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons, you hear that? Sons of your father who is in heaven. For he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good. And he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax gatherers do the same? And if you greet your brother only, what do you do more than others?

Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Big statement. Now, I don't think Jesus would have said something that he didn't think could become a possibility in our lives. That we could actually unconditionally love those who are our enemies, who have persecuted us, who have hurt us, who have hurt our children, who have hurt our families, who have said unkind words about us. That we have the possibility to do that. But let me tell you something.

You'll never do it in your own strength. You'll only be able to do it when you love God with your whole heart, mind, body, strength, every bit of your being. And out of that will flow a compassion for others. In John 13, 34, Jesus said, a new commandment I give to you. Well, I thought the new commandment was to love your neighbor like you love yourself. And Jesus says, let me give you a new commandment. That you love one another even as I have loved you.

That you also love one another. Now, what's that saying? I don't just love people like I love myself. Jesus raises the bar. You love people like I love them. Now, that'll knock the self-righteousness right out of everyone. The law is given as a mirror for us to see ourselves.

When I look in the mirror every day, I see my own sin and my own self-righteousness and my own rebellion. But when I look past that, I see the love of Jesus, the death on the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the outpouring of this Holy Spirit. I see that Jesus says, you can go out there and love folks today, Kerry, just like I love them. That's not an impossibility. That's not an impossibility. Get filled with the Holy Spirit. Get filled with my holiness in your life. Amen. Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you for this day and your love and your mercy that you pour out on us while we were yet sinners. Your son died for us so that we might be saved, changed, transformed in order that we might be the image of Christ in this world. Lord, the only Bible some folks may ever read is me. It's me, Lord. Lord, come in my heart, fill me with your spirit, live through me so that I might embrace others, even my enemies with love.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen, you guys. Go on and be reading through Luke.

We'll keep plugging through there. That Samaritan's story's not just about being a good guy, is it? It's about showing Jesus to the world. Go live with that the rest of this week. Amen. Love you guys.

I love you guys. Amen.