Good Samaritan Luke 10 Vs 25 37

Welcome to Faith Bible Church. We're glad you're here. I see a lot of people are on vacation. I know that some have taken their youngsters to college.

And if you have your bullets, it's just a reminder of the announcements. We have a prayer time tonight at six o 'clock.

Come back and join us at that time. And also the summer Bible study is in the fellowship hall on September the 29th at 530.

And that's this coming Friday. And also we have the missionary of the month is

Penny Harden. And I just thought I would just give you, she sends out her prayer letter and we have the prayer letters usually back on the table that are new.

And to get a little more familiar with her, she wrote a note, just a real quick note here. She says, a few months ago

I went to a restaurant. She lives in Vallejo. I went to a restaurant with an unsaved hearing friend who knows sign language when we ran into a deaf lady with her family and friend.

Since then we have gotten together as a group. So she uses all these occasions to try to meet the deaf people, to invite them to church, have a testimony to the

Lord. And she says the one lady expressed an interest in coming to our church. So think about her as you, she says from time to time

I go to a deaf seniors club as a way to make contacts. That's another thing that she does.

And that in Fairfield, they have a deaf person there started a monthly deaf social at the food court of the shopping mall a few months ago.

And she said, I've gone several times. And so she says, continue to pray for me as I make, try to make contacts with deaf people to introduce them to the

Lord and to the church that they have in Vallejo. So think about her in that way.

And with that, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our heavenly father and our

God, we come to you this morning. We thank you for your provision for us as a church.

We thank you for all those who have come out today desiring to sing praises to you, desiring to hear your word.

We pray that you would apply these things to our hearts. May we even feel your presence with us this day as we meet together.

We would remember Penny Harden and the ministry that she does with the deaf.

We would just uphold her, pray for her strength or encouragement and give her continued opportunities to meet and to give the testimony for you to these people and to invite them to the church there in Vallejo.

And we would thank you for that, Lord. We pray for pastor now as he would bring your word, pray that you would speak through him the things you've laid on his heart, and we would thank you for it.

And as we sing heavenly father, may you help us lift up our voice and may we realize that you are our reason for living

Lord. And we'll thank you for it and pray in Jesus name. Amen. Before we start singing,

I just wanted to remind you that all of the songs that we're going to sing today talk about the fact of the attributes of God, the character of God.

What's God like? And as we sing, I was just looking through some of the things. It says in the songs that we sing, we have a loving

God. We have a loving God. We have a holy God. I've thought about that a lot.

Compare a holy God with Satan who's unholy. Everything Satan desires of the people that follow him is their destruction.

Our God gives us life. So we have a holy God. We have a

God of compassion. That's in the songs that we sing this morning. We have a faithful God.

That means he's faithful. He doesn't change. He has no shadow of turning is one of the phrases in one of the hymns that we sing.

And we have a God of mercy. So as we stand together and sing, we're still singing to our

Lord and praising and thanking him for his attributes. So stand together with me. I'm going to be reading from Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 through 10.

That's Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 through 10.

But God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead and trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, but anyone should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of these words.

Please turn with me to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10 verses 25 through 37.

Luke chapter 10 verses 25 through 37. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him saying,

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, what is written in the law?

What is your reading of it? So 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 rightly, do this and you will live. But he wanting to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

Then Jesus answered and said, a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his clothing and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now, by chance, a certain priest came down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side.

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion.

So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. And he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him.

On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, take care of him.

And whatever more you spend when I come again, I will repay you. So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?

And he said, he who showed mercy on him. Then Jesus said to him, go and do likewise.

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father, we are thankful that you are merciful and gracious, that you're holy and faithful.

And thank you for this passage that reveals what Christians ought to do only because what

Christians have experienced in Jesus Christ. Help us to understand this parable.

It's a familiar parable. It's probably the most famous parable. Help us to understand scripture in its context so that we may be transformed, that we may be conformed into the image of your son,

Jesus. In his name, we pray. Amen. So this passage is probably the most famous parable.

And the reason why I say this is because there are so many charity organizations that's named after this particular

Samaritan. In fact, most people would not be able to define what a

Samaritan is or who a Samaritan is in the biblical context. They would just think of them as that really generous guy or really merciful guy, the one who helped out.

Now, in order to understand this text, we do have to confront this idea of inheriting eternal life.

And notice how the lawyer asks the question, what must

I do to inherit eternal life? And it's a very odd question to ask because normally when you inherit something, it's not something you do.

It's something who you are. You don't inherit by doing something you inherit because you were born in the family.

And we have to also know that this context is that the lawyer is not looking to find out how to be saved.

He's here to test Jesus. He's here to trap Jesus just in case he says something wrong.

And with that in mind, that's how Jesus answers. So this is not a works -based salvation as one may use out of context, right?

Oh, all I have to do is love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love my neighbor as yourself.

During the passage, we will see that it is precisely impossible to do those things perfectly.

Hence, the lawyer himself tries to justify himself. He knows he's not doing it right.

And how Jesus answered it is, well, if you, I guess, if you perfectly love God and perfectly love others, well, then you really don't need a savior.

There's no sin, right? In the end, if you perfectly love God, why would you sin?

And furthermore, we need to check the context that's broader than this passage, which is that Jesus precisely revealed the nature of his ministry, that he must suffer and die for his people and rise from the dead.

And ever since Luke 9 51, Jesus had been heading toward Jerusalem exactly to die for his people, which means if Jesus has to die for the sinners, this passage cannot possibly mean a parable on how to be saved, how to love properly so that you're saved.

After all, what's the point of heading to Jerusalem to die to deliver his people if you can just love the right way and do it all on your own?

Now, the structure of this interaction is very well uniformed.

The lawyer asked the question, and then Jesus, instead of answering the question, he asked the question, well, what do you think?

What does the law say? How do you read it? And then the lawyer answers, right?

Love the Lord God and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus answers, you have said it rightly.

Go and do likewise. Then the lawyer asked the question, then who is my neighbor? Then Jesus tells a long parable and then asks the question, who's, who, which of the three was a neighbor to him who is dying?

And then the lawyer answers, and then Jesus answers, and it ends quite abruptly.

You might be even expecting a question after that to continue the pattern. And we'll discuss this more.

We don't know what happened to the lawyer in the end. Now, the main point of this passage is that Jesus' disciples sacrificially love not to justify themselves, but because they have been sacrificially loved.

Jesus' disciples sacrificially love not to justify themselves, but because they have been sacrificially loved.

First, because no one can earn eternal life by perfectly obeying the law. Those who reject

Jesus justify themselves to be righteous in their own eyes because no one can earn eternal life by perfectly obeying the law.

Those who reject Jesus justify themselves to be righteous in their own eyes.

Now in an unknown setting, this, this just happens out of nowhere. We don't, we're not told where he is in the journey.

A lawyer pops out and he asks Jesus, and behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him saying, saying, right, what must

I do to inherit eternal life? The occupation lawyer is not just a secular lawyer that you may know has a law degree, right?

JD after the name, and then they're always argumentative. They charge a lot of money.

That's not the lawyer here. The lawyer in this picture is the one who has studied the law thoroughly.

In other texts, we, we know them as scribes. So they have these religious training.

They have religious authority. There are, and they know the Bible really well.

Now Luke tells us that the reason for asking this question is actually to test

Jesus. It's not a genuine question looking for answer, right? He wants to test

Jesus. So he stands up to ask, which is a Jewish tradition, right? When you're actually learning all sitting down, it's not just the teacher sitting, standing up, everyone's sitting down.

And if you have a question, instead of raising your hand, you just stand up and ask the question teacher, right?

Now, again, it is important to know that this lawyer is not looking for salvation.

He's trying to trap Jesus teacher. What shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And this is a rather bizarre question. Again, as I've said, inheritance has to do with the place, the family that you're born into.

That's how you inherit. You can't do anything to inherit eternal life unless you're born of God's family.

The one who can bestow eternal life. Yet the lawyer asks the question anyway, instead of answering the question,

Jesus asked the lawyer, what he thinks, what is written in the law? And what is your reading of it?

Ironically, the lawyer ends up answering his own question, which he came to trap

Jesus with. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.

The first statement of loving God comes from Deuteronomy 6, 5. This is actually the passage that Jews actually in the synagogues, they recite very frequently.

It's what they need to hear over and over again. The command is comprehensive.

You must love the Lord, your God with all of yourself, right? Heart represents the seat of your emotions, your will and intent.

So everything that's internal here, you must love your God with that. And now your soul represents your life.

With all of your life, you must love the Lord. And then strength represents all of your capabilities, right?

It's your drive. And depending on some translation, your wealth, even some ancient translations, think strength to be wealth.

Now, the mind is one of your cognition. What this is saying is there is no part of you that is not loving

God. You cannot just love God through your actions and harbor hatred toward him inside.

Well, I'll go to church, but I don't really care for God, right? I'll go to church, but you know, it's just a concept.

That's not possible. What it's saying is there must not be any inconsistencies, whether inside or out, which means there's no hypocrisy when you love

God. It has to be with all of your being. That's why I don't really like this question of this, oh, is love a feeling or action?

It's both. You are to love your God with all your heart.

You can't just do something for God and then you don't care for him. Now, this is not to say that, oh,

I don't really feel like spending time with God, so I'm not going to, right? That's not loving

God. That's loving yourself and your desires. But again, you can't have a separate part of you that's not loving

God. Now, this is rather a tall demand because we may have seasons during which we're on fire for God.

Reading the Bible is so enjoyable, and church worship service is so exciting, and I love praying to God.

There are seasons like that, but of course there are seasons where you just don't want to open that Bible, and there are seasons where you can't get yourself to pray.

Feels like you're just mumbling empty words. Now, the command here, however, is that we ought to love

God all the time with all of ourselves and with all that we have, and it's overwhelmingly impossible to do that perfectly.

And the lawyer's answer here technically makes sense regarding eternal life.

After all, if you were to love God completely uncomprehensively always, hypothetically,

I'm not saying it's possible, hypothetically, yeah, you would never sin. Your will would be perfectly aligned with God's will.

Your desire will never stray from God's desire. Your mind will only be focused on God, and your body will only be fulfilling

God's plan. But really, no one born into sin can live like that.

No one born into sin has ever lived like that. Now, the second command is from Leviticus 19 .18.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Notice the difference in standards for love.

God's people are not commanded to love their neighbors with their heart, with their soul, with all their strength, and with all their mind.

That's not the command at all. You would expect that for parallelism, but that's not it. That kind of love is only reserved for God.

If you love any other person with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, that's called idolatry.

It is putting a created being in the place of God. This can't happen with your spouse.

This can't happen with your kid. This can't happen with your parents. This can't happen with your friends. However, this does not mean we don't love our neighbors.

In fact, this is a tall order, too. They ought to love their neighbor as themselves.

They're to value them as you value yourself. What it really is saying is the

Bible assumes that you love yourself already. You don't need a command for that. Unlike what the world is saying, love yourself first.

The point is you already do. Let's actually focus on other people. Let's listen to what they have to say.

Let's listen to what they've experienced in life. Let's try to care for what they need, not what you think they might want.

Right. Let's focus on them and their needs and God's best for them.

Now, again, we must consider the context of this interaction. The lawyer does not desire to be saved.

The question here is disingenuous. He wants to trap Jesus, have him say something wrong about the law.

Now, Jesus, knowing this, he answers with that in mind, right? Well, hypothetically, if you want to earn eternal life by your works, live perfectly.

If you never sin, you don't need a savior.

I guess that's one way of going about that. It's just that in human history, that has been impossible for everyone since the fall.

So Jesus replies, you have answered rightly. Do this and you will live right here.

Do what must I do to inherit eternal life? Well, do that. Translation.

If you want to rely on your good works instead of God's grace through Christ, don't ever sin.

Live a sinless life. Be perfect. At another level, we must read the command in the context of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem.

Right. He has previously revealed in chapter 10, verse 22, that the only way you come to the father, the only way you can even know the father is that you know the son.

The son has to reveal the father. You can only know God only through Jesus. So in one sense, at the core of this command to love

God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, is that this lawyer better respond to Jesus in faith.

That's another way of reading this command. After all, how can you love

God if you cannot approach him because you've rejected his only son? Without the son, you cannot know the father because only the son reveals the father.

However, of course, the lawyer desires to do no such a thing. That's why the next verse makes sense.

But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

The lawyer knows that Jesus knows that he has not sufficiently loved

God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. Yet, just maybe, just maybe, he has a chance of being good enough to obeying the second commandment to love one's neighbor as yourself.

Maybe he has a chance of fulfilling the second demand. So in one sense, the lawyer wants to earn eternal life his way.

Well, at least 50 % is better than 0%. He does not want to submit to Jesus' way.

Therefore, he justifies himself. And this is called self -justification. Justification.

Justification is making one or declaring one to be right.

And we'll discuss more of this, but justification happens all the time. Instead of being justified by Christ and what he's done on the cross to die for our sin, and knowing that we're forgiven because he faced the punishment that you deserved rather than you, justification by self actually eliminates

Christ in the picture, and you become the judge to justify yourself.

You become righteous in your own eyes. One example I'll give is when someone sins, when someone goes against God, that person might say, well, you know, everyone does it.

It's only human. Come on. No one can be perfect. That's self -justification.

That's a red flag. Because if you're justified by Christ, you would have no problem admitting your sin because it has no power over you because he's paid for it all.

Now, the lawyer in the same way, right, justifies himself because he knows that he has not obeyed the law perfectly, right?

And who is my neighbor? Let's soften the demand for loving my neighbor.

This is that you might, if you were a teacher, you might have heard, what's the minimum score I can get to pass, right?

Give me the bare minimum and I'll have it met. And on a test that requires a perfect score, this lawyer asked, what's the minimum score he can achieve to pass?

He knows he's off to a bad start. He doesn't even scratch the first commandment, right?

But if I can limit my requirement to just a few, perhaps eternal life is again graspable.

I will be justified according to my own standard. Perhaps God will curve the score.

No, I'm pretty good. I'm like the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry basket.

That's self -justification. I'm not as bad as that guy. Now, before we judge the lawyer for justifying himself, we must look at our own lives because we're masters at it too.

This is not a technique you need to be taught. Children do not have to take lessons on how to justify yourself when they get caught.

One of the common ones are, I didn't know that. Hmm. If we're ever caught in the wrong, our minds race toward finding the most convenient reason as to why what we actually had done is excusable.

It's not actually wrong if you look at it in one angle. Why our fault is in fact no fault at all.

In fact, clearly it is the most valid reason as to why we disobeyed God. Man, if God could be disobeyed, that would be it.

That's self -justification. For example, I screamed at you because I was going through a hard week.

Now, if I had screamed at you and I was going through an easy week, oh, that's sin, but it was a hard week.

That's self -justification. Self -justification makes you guiltless in your own eyes.

Before you know it, you have depicted yourself as the most innocent person in the room.

Sometimes they blame others. Why? I screamed at you because you were being annoying. Self -justification makes self the judge rather than the one who is seated on the throne.

It's self -idolatry, really. It's nasty. Yet, self -justification, ultimately, the biggest problem is that it forfeits

God's justification through Jesus Christ. For those who want to be righteous aside from Christ have to naturally justify themselves because they will not be made righteous through Christ's atoning death on the cross, bearing all of our sins and facing

God's wrath. Only way to be justified by God through Christ is to humbly trust that Jesus' death on the cross for your sin was the only way in which you can be forgiven.

Any other method of justification will lead you to hell.

If this sounds too true for you this morning, you got to repent.

You got to confess to God that you've just dethroned the judge and sat on the judge seat yourself and received the forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

That's the only way. People who justify themselves continually will find that God will not justify them in the end because they've rejected

Christ. Now, that was the natural response for those who want to earn eternal life.

If you want to earn eternal life, you have to justify yourself because there's no way you can do it perfectly.

Now, for Christians, we have no need to justify ourselves because we are made righteous by Jesus' death on the cross alone.

We're not righteous based upon our good works. We're not righteous based upon how much we know about the

Bible. We're not righteous based upon how mature we are in the faith. We're only righteous because Jesus took away our sin and fully paid for it on the cross and he clothed you in his righteousness.

So, we're not righteous in our own eyes. That doesn't even matter to us anymore.

We are righteous before God because our sin has been judicially, legally dealt with once and for all.

God no longer accounts your sin, past, present, or future because Jesus has fully suffered for all of your sin on your behalf.

God does not see the record of your sin when he looks at you.

He only sees the record of Christ's righteousness because you've been justified by Christ.

When Christians sin, they have the freedom to confess honestly that they have sinned and have the utmost assurance that their internal inheritance is secure.

That's because it's not based upon them. It's based upon what he did. When Christians are falsely accused, this does happen too.

Even then, they don't need to justify themselves because Jesus will be the one who justifies them whether in the present time or in the future.

Every Christian will be vindicated for all the slanderous and false accusations that have been thrown at them in their lifetime.

When you're falsely accused, you don't have to be bothered one bit because it's not your job to justify yourself.

When someone thinks badly of you, you don't have to be bothered one bit because you don't have to justify yourself because you have a judge sitting on the throne who has justified you already.

That's the freedom that Christians live in. Now, how does

Jesus respond to the lawyer's self -justification regarding loving one's neighbor? Only the disciples of Christ who have experienced

Christ's sacrificial love can love their neighbors sacrificially. Only the disciples of Christ who have experienced

Christ's sacrificial love can love their neighbor sacrificially. In response to the lawyer's question,

Jesus actually starts telling a parable. A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among the thieves who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed leaving him half dead.

This journey from Jerusalem to Jericho was quite well known for its danger. There's a descent of 3 ,000 feet because Jerusalem is on a hill and it goes through the desert and that desert has many caves and caves mean a lot of hiding places where the outlaws, thieves, bandits, highwaymen.

And not only that, this was 17 miles long. This was no Pebble Beach. This man, unfortunately, is attacked by multiple thieves and he is left to die.

It's not just one man attacking him. He could have maybe fended himself. It was a gang of thieves that attacked him.

And the reason why they strip him of his clothing is because clothes back then were not mass -produced in factories, which means clothes were valuable.

They took time. They took materials that were precious. In one sense, we do have this similarity.

In one sense, it's similar to bullies taking your Nike Jordans, right?

Athletic shoes that cost way too much. They do take your clothing still if you're just wearing the right kind.

Now, other than his dying state, we have no description of this man. No name, no background, no occupation.

And this is because the focus of this parable is not about him, but who responds to him.

Now, verse 31 shows us the first responder. Now, by chance, a certain priest came down the road.

The phrase, now by chance, almost anticipates a rapid rescue, right?

The lawyer and other disciples must have thought, oh, good, by chance. How fortunate, a priest.

A priest came down the road. Man, he's going to be rescued. For modern day listeners, think maybe a respected senior pastor was passing down the streets of San Francisco and he saw an overdosed man on the street.

He's got to do something, of course. Surely, a man who represents the merciful

God to his people must have compassion on the dying man. Surely, the servant of the gracious God must take notice of this man.

What a short parable. However, the response is rather the opposite.

And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. This is a unique word that only occurs twice in the testament.

It's a rare word, not unique. Here in the next verse, the priest and the

Levite. It's to go across to the other side against.

You could not possibly be farther away from this dying man with this action.

The motive, of course, is unclear. It doesn't tell us, right? If God wanted us to know the motive, if he would let us know.

Was he scared that maybe there were other bandits? Was he afraid that maybe he would be made unclean if this man happened to be dead, right?

And the priests have to be clean. The purification would take days. Maybe he was just done with his service.

He wanted to race home to his family. And if he touched the dead man, he would have been unclean.

Talk about the delay. But God doesn't tell us. The point is not the motive, but the response.

The priest did not love his neighbor as himself. Verse 32 introduces the second responder.

Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side.

Levites were assistants to the priest. They didn't have the same role as the priest, but they did the setup.

They did the cleanup. After the exile, really, they were tasked in teaching people about God.

So, they were ministers themselves. Vocational ministers, right? Think of this guy as an associate pastor or youth pastor.

And he passes by. The Levite, however, examines the dying man at close distance.

He comes close to him. He does actually one step more than what the priest has done.

The priest just looks and leaves. He goes close to him and examines the dying man.

However, the response is still the same. He passed by on the other side. He crossed the street to continue walking the same direction.

The Levite also was not a neighbor to the dying man. At one level, these two responders would have been a gut punch to the lawyer who would have been very close to the priest and the

Levites. He's a religious authority himself. And none of his fellow religious elites, despite knowing the law like the back of their hand, stopped to fulfill the second greatest commandment.

Love your neighbor as yourself. And just as you may be wondering, what could possibly be the loving neighbor to this man?

Who could possibly be the loving neighbor to this man? Jesus introduces the third character.

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.

Now, unlike the modern -day use of Samaritan, right? Samaritan's Purse, the good

Samaritan law, right? Samaritan had a hugely negative connotation.

They were treated as defiled mixed bloods. And a brief history lesson regarding Samaritans is necessary here.

Samaria was once the capital of the Northern Kingdom after Israel split into two.

Northern and Southern Kingdom. So, Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and Judah, the Southern Kingdom.

As you know, in comparison to Judah, the Northern Kingdom raced toward its depravity rather quickly.

In fact, they were actually conquered first and they were exiled first. They were always quick to adopt the newest idols.

They were always quick to have the next pagan gods in their temples and oppressing the most vulnerable in the vilest ways.

They found new ways. Now, this all came to an end around 722 BC, when the

Assyrian Empire, which is a pagan nation itself, took them captive.

However, their history doesn't end here. While they were captive, taken captive, they started marrying unbelievers, their pagan neighbors, foreigners.

And they started adopting their own religions. And what happened was their faith became syncretized.

It got mixed up, right? And of course, instead of worshiping in Jerusalem, the

Temple Mount, they chose to worship on their own mountain, Mount Gerizim. And of course, because they rejected the temple, they rejected the

Levitical priesthood. They had their own priests. And because of this, the

Jews saw them as just corrupt. They viewed them as pagans, really.

And in fact, some traditions considered eating with a Samaritan as defiling as eating pork.

Imagine that. They're basically outsiders. Now, just as the

Samaritan arrives, the audience listening to Jesus' parable would have thought, this has to be the last person who would actually help the dying man.

This would be like a radical Islamist who sees a dying man bleeding on the church parking lot, while the

Presbyterian minister, Baptist pastor passed by.

The radical Islamist, who knows why he's doing by the church? Stoops down low, checks the pulse, takes him up, and drives him to the hospital.

That's the kind of impact shock it would have had to the Jewish listeners.

A Samaritan. What's he doing here? What business does he have loving a neighbor?

Now, what's the Samaritan's response? And when he saw him, he had compassion.

This is the same compassion that Jesus had when he saw the widow weeping at her only son's funeral in Luke 7.

This is also the same compassion that fills the father who sees his son running from far off, and he's filled with compassion and starts running towards the son.

And that compassion fills the Samaritan. It is the gut -wrenching, heart -stirring compassion when anyone,

I guess any Christian, sees someone in a dire state. And that compassion filled the

Samaritan man. And the next two verses intricately describe all the ways in which the

Samaritan man loves his unknown dying neighbor. First, he provides immediate care at the cost of his own comfort.

So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

First, he approaches the man. Unlike the priest, he actually comes close. He's risking his life here too.

After all, there's no guarantee that whatever bad fellas that did that to this dying man is far off.

Second, bandaging his wound required the Samaritan to actually rip his own clothes, right?

He will ruin his clothes for the sake of this stripped stranger on the ground, right?

After all, there was no first aid kits people were carrying around. Next, he pours oil and wine.

The oil would have soothed the wound and the wine would have disinfected the wound, right?

I mean, that wine has alcohol. Alcohol kills the bad stuff, germs. What this means is the

Samaritan had to give up his own refreshments as he was going through a desert. That was his drink.

That's what he was going to use for himself. That's what he planned.

He forfeited his provision so that the dying man could live. Fourth, he gives up his own comfort so that the dying man could be carried by his mule.

It means he wasn't riding the mule as he was just prior to meeting this man.

He got off it, started walking, who knows however many miles in the desert.

Fifth, he takes the dying man to the inn to further personally care for him. And verse 35 shows how much the

Samaritan goes above and beyond what is expected. On the next day when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, take care of him.

And whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you. The Samaritan had to depart for his business, but he does not abandon the stranger whom he just rescued.

He offers the innkeeper two days worth of wages. Not only that, he offers to pay if the medical care costs even more than expected, more than the two denarii, which is two days wage.

Now this response was more important than just the health care. Remember this dying man has no money.

He doesn't even have clothes because he was robbed and beaten to nearly death.

Now he wasn't, what would have happened was if he woke up from his coma, there was a bigger problem ahead of him.

He would have to pay the innkeeper for all the care he received. Now, considering how beat up this guy was, you know, a broken bone could take weeks.

The stay would have to have been more than just two days, multiple days that he cannot pay back because he got everything stolen.

And in ancient cultures, if you don't get paid, if you don't pay back, if you are in debt, you are sold into slavery.

The future of this dying man was at stake and the Samaritan knew it. So he provides for the dying man's future needs.

The Samaritan redeems him from the future risk of enslavement. The Samaritan out of his own pocket rescues him from slavery.

Now the Samaritan's acts of love here show what love truly is.

It is the other focus acts of mercy, even if it comes at a great cost to self.

Love has nothing to do with self. Love is giving of oneself to meet the needs of others.

Now, after telling this remarkable parable, Jesus responds to the lawyer's question with a question.

So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? Which one was the loving neighbor to this dying man?

And the lawyer replies, he who showed mercy on him. The lawyer cannot even bear to say the

Samaritan. He merely utters what the Samaritan did rather than who he is because he could not face the fact that it was the

Samaritan who loved his neighbor as himself. Surpassing the priests and the

Levites, the Jews. A paganized Samaritan outloved the priests and the

Levites. Now, just as the lawyer desired to know what to do to inherit the eternal life,

Jesus sends him off to do exactly that. Go and do likewise.

And of course, in the context of Luke, this is not Jesus telling the lawyer that, oh, this is your great opportunity to be saved by good works.

Rather, this ending is abrupt. Following the pattern of discussion here, question, question, answer, answer, question, question, answer, answer.

Naturally, one would expect a question from the lawyer. If he truly cared about inheriting eternal life, certainly there's got to be a question.

He can't possibly think that he's been doing that all his life as the

Samaritan did. I could think of a few questions myself after hearing a parable like that.

Who can possibly love like that? Or similarly, how can anyone love like that?

After all, if the lawyer truly believed that his eternal life depended on how he loved his neighbor as himself, would he not want to know how to fulfill that demand?

But the question is not asked. And the lawyer doesn't receive the answer.

But we know the answer. Ultimately, the good

Samaritan points to what Jesus has come to do. The good Samaritan may love his neighbor in a parable, but Jesus loves his neighbor in real life.

The good Samaritan approaches a dying man he doesn't know. Jesus approaches spiritually and physically dead people who often mocked and rejected him.

The good Samaritan gave all that he had to care for his man. But Jesus is the ultimate

Samaritan who gave even his life to tenderly care for those who are dead in their trespasses and rescue them from the future enslavement.

And only after experiencing such a love can anyone love like that. That command can only be fulfilled by those who have experienced such a love.

Only after experiencing Jesus' sacrificial compassion can you sacrificially love another person like that without any selfishness or self -centered thought.

And I will actually share an experience of this kind of love that happened this week, actually.

Last week, our faithful 10 -year -old Kia started having engine problems. As usual, the engine light came on.

That's normal. That happened before, and we thought, it's just a fluke. Now, but this time, we couldn't just ignore that visual warning because the car started shaking as if we're riding a horse.

We couldn't ignore that. The car could easily catch on fire. So we immediately took it to our mechanic.

Now, we knew a major fix was needed by then, right? If it's an engine, you know it's not just a couple hundred.

Now, we just weren't expecting it last week. So as some of you know, it's quite expensive.

So it was pretty disheartening and daunting to think about. But there was no other choice.

That's our vehicle. We don't have a second car. And even buying a used car would have been more expensive than fixing the car that we already have with the market right now.

So we decided to bite the bullet and get it fixed. The very next day when

I was at work, we received a call that the Kia was fixed. I told

Lauren who was home, and she could just easily walk to the mechanic. It's less than a mile. And Lauren went to retrieve our car.

And as she was about to pay for it, the mechanic told her it's been anonymously paid for.

Unlike the celebrities and influencers who help out and film about it as they give out whatever help the other people need, but at the center of it is them, how generous they are.

This person, the Good Samaritan, did not want any attention to himself or herself. He or she was only focused on compassionately caring for those who need help and chose to remain anonymous.

And immediately Lauren knew it had to be someone from this church, which they confirmed without disclosing their identity.

Now, she could have guessed her parents or even my parents, because they knew what was wrong with our car.

We told them, we discussed with them, we asked them for advice, right? And they knew it was going to be expensive.

And we know they're extremely generous. Yet her mind went directly to those who have experienced

Christ's sacrificial love. Why?

Because this Samaritan did not want a single ounce of attention to himself or herself, but only sought to fully meet the need.

Because ultimately only those who have been sacrificially loved by Jesus can sacrificially love others.

As Jesus commands, only those who have been selflessly loved by Jesus can selflessly love back.

That's the point of the Good Samaritan. It's more than just do what the

Samaritan did. But you must first receive the rescue from the

Ultimate Samaritan. Let us pray. Father, we're thankful that your love is selfless and your love is self -giving.

And we thank you that Jesus is the one who gave his all to see us live.

And we pray that for us who have experienced such a love, would love back like that.

Not focus on us, not patting our backs, but focusing on what

Jesus has done and reflecting his glory and love to others. Even if we don't get any recognition, it's all worth it to love because we've been loved.