Called by His Name — Erlo Stegen

Let's read from Luke 23. Please excuse me if I read quite a number of verses. We read from verse 23 and chapter 10 from the Gospel according to Luke. Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, blessed are the eyes that see what you see.

For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

What is written in the law? He replied, how do you read it? He answered, 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 love your neighbor as yourself.

Why is it you lose? You have answered correctly. Jesus replied, do this and you will live. But he wanted to justify himself so he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor? In reply Jesus said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers.

They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man he passed by on the other side. So too a Levite when he came to the place and saw him he passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan as he traveled came where the man was and when he saw him he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds pouring oil on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him.

The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him he said, and when I return I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?

The expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, go and do likewise. Here in this passage which we have read our Lord praises and marvels about the glory that we as Christians have received.

We Christians have a name that supersedes any other name. There is no name that surpasses that of a Christian. There is no wealth that surpasses the wealth and the riches that there are in the Christian faith.

You can go throughout the whole world to all nations and all peoples and you will never find a name that surpasses the name of being a Christian. And Jesus says, blessed are your eyes. I don't know how to say this in African.

There is nothing in this world that can compete with the name of Christ. To that of being a Christian to the name that we have and carry. It's just a pity that so many Christians do not realize their exalted position.

And they treat that name as a common name and their position as a Christian as just a common position like being like a Muslim or a Hindu. There is no blessedness that can be compared to it. No wealth or treasure in this world.

Even if you would receive millions that would not compare to being a Christian. There is no diamond that has the glory of being a Christian. And it's just a pity that many do not understand and realize that.

But let me tell you, you do not realize that you are dead spiritually. When Jesus was with his disciples, he privately said to them, blessed are the eyes that see what you see and the ears that hear what you hear.

He said, many prophets and kings desire to see what you see, but it wasn't given to them to see it. But you have seen it. What is it that they saw? They saw Jesus. There is nothing comparable to that, to see Jesus.

That you have the privilege to call yourself a Christian and right until the end of your life, where you can be a Christian. The one who hasn't seen Jesus is lost, doomed and damned. No matter from which nation you are, whether you're a raw heathen, or whether you have some other religion, but the one who hasn't seen Jesus is lost.

You may have father, mother, wife, children, a wonderful house. You may own farms. You may have whatever wealth, but if you haven't seen Jesus, you're lost and you're damned. That is why Paul says in the New Testament, that I count everything as done and as a loss for that, that I might know Jesus and his glory.

There was an author, a scribe. When he heard Jesus, he asked of him a question, an expert in the law. He said, teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? When we hear those words, we might say, well, he seems to have very serious intentions and is very serious.

In the meantime, he's a rogue. He's a man of Satan. But you who don't have discernment, if you would have heard that, you would have thought, my, this is a good man seeking the way to eternal life. You get people that say pious things, but they are criminals.

But if you would hear how piously they speak, you might even give them a place at the pulpit. In the meantime, his motive for asking that question was to test Jesus, to trap him. He, so to say, wanted to get a rope with which you could hang Jesus.

He wanted to trap Jesus. He wanted to trap him with his own words, so that afterwards he could run to his friends and his pals and say, you know what Jesus said? He said this and the following thing. There are people that come here with that motive, not seeking life, but seeking for something like a rope or a rim to hang that person.

If indeed he was seeking life, we would have rejoiced, but he was just testing Jesus, tempting him, trying to trap him. He said, oh teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus recognised it as a trap, realising this man asked this question with an ulterior motive.

His intention wasn't to get to heaven, but to get something which he could hold against the Lord Jesus. He was sent by Satan and impersonating Satan at that moment, asking him in a crafty manner like Satan, trying to get something which you could hold against him.

Those chains which he intended to entrain the Lord Jesus with, the Lord Jesus snapped them apart like one would snap the threads of a web. And then Jesus answered him. Jesus said to him, in other words, since you're an expert of the law, what is written in the law, how do you read and understand it?

And he was so disappointed because Jesus didn't fall into his trap. And so he answered, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and all your mind and love your neighbour as yourself.

Jesus replied, you have answered correctly. Go and do that. And Jesus asked him, what is written in the law? And then he asked him personally, he said, how do you see it? He didn't aim it in various directions, he aimed it right at him.

He said, do this. Well, he was disappointed and had lost heart and he had lost. He had failed. Why did Jesus say that? Jesus said that for he knew that no man on earth out of himself can do this, can love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength.

No one, not even anyone amongst us. You will love your child, you will love money, mammon, the world, this and that and the next thing, but you won't love your God with all your heart. And with all your soul, that means it includes all your feelings and with all your mind and your strength.

No one can do that. Don't you glance at different things in different directions and you get attracted to that and you want that now instead of God. So he said, do this. For he knew that that man, that expert of the law couldn't do that from himself.

But he was like a cat that you just cannot kill. He sidestepped and evaded the question. He said, who then is my neighbor? He asked that of Jesus. He said of Jesus, he asked him, who is my neighbor? And then Jesus related the story of this man who went to Jericho from Jerusalem and on his way there met up with a band of robbers and murderers who beat him up and they left him there next to the road bleeding and they left him for dead.

And where he would have died if nobody had come to help him. And then a priest came along that road and when he saw him there next to the road he made a detour around him. After some time a Levite came.

The same story, he saw him and then he just looked at him. He didn't do anything to help him. He just looked at him like what many people do. They just look on. They don't do anything to help. And then a Samaritan came.

The Samaritans were despised by the Jews, looked down upon. Because they were of mixed race. The Jews that had intermarried with other nations and then the Samaritans came about of mixed race and the Jews looked down upon them.

They despised them. Not only intermarriage, they just get babies like people today. They get along with the Samaritans. They are easy to understand. They just look on. The Samaritans are just the same.

They didn't intermarry with their nation. And then the other Samaritans came and they didn't intermarry with their nation. And when this Samaritan, so to say, Khaled came, he saw him and he took pity on him.

He went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and then he put him on his own animal, might have been a donkey or a horse, we don't know, but he took him on his own animal and took care of him.

This Samaritan felt pity, had empathy with this man. And then Jesus asked of this expert of the Lord, he said, now which of these three men were a neighbor to this man? He said, well, after all, the one who helped him.

This Samaritan even took that man to a holiday inn of those days, and he said, look, here is some money for the expenses, and if that's not enough, I'll come back again and I'll pay, reimburse you for the rest.

Now, what did Jesus try to say? What was Jesus' intention of saying through this? Yes, we can take it just exactly at face value as he said it. But it fulfilled a word from Ezekiel 16 verse 6. In fact, each one of us here is like that man traveling, that met up with that band of robbers, that met up with Satan, the murderer, and we were beaten and left for dead by him.

In our lives, Satan, with his hordes of demons came and beat us, stripped us of everything, leaving us beside the road full of blood, with no one taking pity on us. And then the Samaritan came that had mercy on us.

God created us in his own image. But today we have lost his image. We have lost the image of God. We have lost the image of God. We have lost the image of God. But today, we have lost that image. We have taken on the image of Satan.

We are now in his image because you get people that get drunk, and you get people that are immoral, and you get girls that are women girls. They're not pure anymore, but they're not married women either.

Satan has taken away that stamp that God placed on us, and he placed on us his own stamp. And we take God's name in vain. We use God's name in vain. We say to him, O Lord, O God. And Jesus said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you do not do what I tell you?

We lie. We curse. There are so many things that we do that are not according to the likeness of God, but of Satan. And Satan is the one who has come and ambushed us along the way as we were going along.

Stripping us naked, leaving us there defiled. At the beginning, man was holy. Man was good, pure. But man has now been defiled, spoiled, hurt, wounded by Satan, being left there for dead. Ezekiel 16 verse 6.

Ezekiel 16 verse 6. Then I passed by, and that is the Lord, and saw you kicking about in your blood. And as you lay there in your blood, I said to you, Live, and I made you grow. That Samaritan is Jesus himself.

We can compare Jesus to a colored person that is mixed because he is both man and God. True God and true man. And Jesus came, the true Samaritan, and he saw you lying there in your blood, kicking about in your blood.

Just think. Just think. Just think how sin and how Satan had destroyed your life totally, left you wounded, where you were enslaved by that sin, where you became a sinner, defiled, dirty. And you say, Well, I'll leave that sin.

I won't ever do it again. And you go back to it. Like a person that uses drugs and is a drug addict that destroys his own life. Or a person that's immoral, a prostitute or whore that just lives immorally, where that person is totally destroyed.

Just telling lies and faithfulness. Where you meet a... With a murderer. John calls Satan a murderer. And where he comes and he robs you of everything that you have. Until Jesus came down and he walked that road.

And there he found us along the way, destroyed, finished, at an end of ourselves, where even our own righteousness are like filthy rags in the sight of God. Where the image of God has been destroyed in a person where there's nothing of it left.

Nothing to be seen in a person where that person has... you cannot trust him. You don't know whether they're going to tell you the truth or whether they're going to lie to you. And where that person is left for dead, having been murdered by Satan.

For Jesus. And where there are even people that shouted those slogans, kill a cop for Jesus. Can you kill a cop for Jesus? There Jesus is Satan. And then Jesus came, full of mercy, full of grace. Not like that Pharisee or that scribe that just knew the Bible, that knew the Word of God, but did nothing about it and didn't live it.

And there he found us along the way, destroyed, at an end of ourselves, where even our own righteousness are like filthy rags in the sight of God. And there he found us along the way, full of mercy, full of grace.

This expert of the law that came to the Lord Jesus and asked him that question, he came with the Bible. He could say, love the Lord your God, and quote that all to him. But he just wanted to trap Jesus.

He actually wanted to destroy and kill him. That's why I say, he was like Satan himself. He said, Jesus came as the heavenly, the true Samaritan, finding us there, wounded, destroyed by sin and by Satan, with all manner of filth and defilement, with lies, with immorality.

Whatever filth or defilement you can think of, clinging to us there. But Jesus came as the true Samaritan and had pity on us as he saw us lying there. Who could help us in that state? We ourselves couldn't even help ourselves.

He alone, the heavenly Samaritan, was able to help you. When he found you there, lying in your blood, kicking about in your blood, bleeding, with your life ebbing away, he took you, he had pity on you.

He washed and cleansed you, washing that blood away. That is when you confess your sin and you are cleansed. And then he dressed and bandaged your wounds. And that is when he brings about life, when you believe on him.

And he took you on his animal and he took you to those that can help you to the end, where there are others that can help you. You know what? You know what that N represents, that hospital so to say? That is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the congregation.

That is where Jesus takes you to, that you may be helped. And then he says, if that which I have provided isn't enough, I will come back and I will even reimburse you for that. And Jesus is returning.

He says there is not one glass of cold water that you have given to one of those who believe on him that will go unrewarded. We have a Caesar. Yeah, Jesus speaks about Where a person comes into that community of believers, into that fellowship, into the church where they can be taken care of.

Where you find a person bleeding but you can bandage their wounds. You can help them to get well. Where that person puts his faith in the Lord Jesus and they get well spiritually. Where a person can be full of joy and rejoice and go about alive and well spiritually.

But it's not that all churches are like that. When the Lord Jesus came into the temple one day, he made a whip and he chased those people out of there. He said, God's house should be a place of prayer and worship and not a place, a den of robbers that you've made it into me.

So you find that as well. Jesus is that great Samaritan who had pity on us, who found us there kicking about in our blood. Destroyed by sin, like one 21-year-old person that said, I'm like a 70-year-old person.

There's no sin that I haven't committed in my life. So Jesus said, well, if that is what the Lord then says, do it. Knowing that he couldn't do it. We were destroyed, beaten by Satan, left there for dead, wounded next to the road when Jesus came and had pity on us.

And had pity on us, washing us, cleansing us, dressing our wounds, bringing healing and life. Where the image of God is restored in us, where no longer we are seen to be dirty and full of sin, but where we are holy, we become saints.

Let's close our eyes and pray. Let's close our eyes and pray. We thank you, Lord Jesus. The true Samaritan from heaven who came and saw us kicking about in our blood, having been destroyed and ravaged by Satan and sin.

We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you had pity on us, that you cleanse us, you restore us, you sanctify us. Before you came, we had no life, no salvation, but now we have salvation. Amen. Amen. And the devil cried out and said, I've been destroyed by sin.

My life has been destroyed. Will I ever become a normal human being again? And yes, you can. Here is this heavenly Samaritan who can come and cleanse you from your blood and sin with his own blood and restore you and make you new again.

I said, Jesus, or that Samaritan is a parable or symbolical of the Lord Jesus himself, who is both true God and true man. Now, how could that Levite and that scribe help that man, that person, because they themselves are sinners?

I said, Jesus, or that Samaritan is a parable or symbolical of the Lord Jesus himself, who is both true God and true man. But Jesus, being divine and man, was able to help that man because he can wash you with his own blood, that divine blood, which is precious blood, which is not like the blood of man.

It's precious. And that is what we read there in Isaiah 53, that even though people look down and despise him, but he being like a Samaritan, he is the one who's able to help us and cleanse us with his own blood.

Just look at what privilege we have to be called Christians by that wonderful name. There is no name as glorious as that.