Compassionate Samaritan

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Zac Lloyd; Luke 10-25-37 Compassionate Samaritan

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Again, like Dave said,
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I'm Zach. So we're going to be in Luke chapter 10, so please go ahead and turn there. It's my privilege to be able to share
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God's Word with you. It's good to be with God's people here, and I've really just benefited from hearing
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God's Word through a number of voices these last few weeks while Don's been on sabbatical, and you guys might be excited to know that this is the last one.
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Don will be back next week, so that'll be good. Not that the Word of God changes at all, but it's kind of good to have the same guy up here every week.
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So we're going to be talking today about the Compassionate Samaritan. I think many of you are probably familiar with this story.
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It talks about a man who shows this sort of radical compassion and love towards somebody, and I wanted to kind of introduce the topic of motivation.
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Why do we do what we do? As a parent, I have four kids. I've learned that you can kind of train behavior into kids by giving them certain external motivation.
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If you do this, good consequences are bad consequences. But ultimately, you get to a point where you want to shepherd their heart, we understand.
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We want it to come from inside. We want God to work from inside them. So this morning, as we talk about what this
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Samaritan does, I want to kind of focus a little bit on why. Why do we do what we do?
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And there's a I was kind of just spending a little bit of time looking into motivation, and I came across a guy named
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Dan Pink, and Dan Pink gave a TED Talk on motivation. And it was kind of interesting what they discovered, because I guess social scientists have identified external motivators and internal motivators, extrinsic and intrinsic motivators.
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And so intrinsic motivators would be things that we do just because we like to do them. You like your hobbies, or you just get joy in the process.
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That's why you do what you do. Whereas an external motivator is something like, I don't want to have to go to work today, but I know if I do,
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I get a paycheck. That's that external motivator. And maybe you have some overlap, but the idea that you could put a carrot at the end of it, you'll do about anything for that carrot.
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But what they found is that in certain circumstances, external motivators fail. And he gave this illustration, it's called the,
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I think the candle problem, and apparently it's a famous cognitive illustration, if I could put it up on the slide.
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And what they do is they give participants a task. They tell them, here is a candle, some tacks, and some matches.
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And what they ask the people to do is to affix it to the wall in such a way that when you light it, the candle wax doesn't drip on the table.
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And so the interesting thing is, and it's been repeated throughout apparently a lot of different studies, to have identified that when you give an external motivation to a task like this, which requires some cognitive ability, some creative, not just a direct, if you sell this many widgets, some creative processing, that that external one didn't actually, not only did it not work, it actually hindered.
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It did not work as well with that external motivator. And so this morning, I want to kind of talk about what motivates us.
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Why do we do it? Because to love somebody, if you've ever tried to love somebody, it's kind of a natural thing.
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But if you've been married for like more than half an hour, you understand that the way, the rub of loving somebody is so that they feel it, so that they feel loved.
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And you'll understand that as humans, in dealing with relationships, humans change. So what worked yesterday won't work tomorrow.
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So those external motivators, for example, in a marriage, where if you are loving to your spouse, she's going to be here, your spouse is going to be more happy, things are going to go better, that's kind of there.
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But I guess to wrap this one up, I didn't mention it, but there's a box in the thing. So if you go to the next slide, this was the solution to it.
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So that's the solution to it. But again, what they found was that the people that didn't have the external motivator did far better without the external than with it.
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And so we talk about love and why do we love. It's better to not have an external motivator, but find something internal.
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So we're going to be looking at this passage in the Gospel of Luke. So if you don't mind turning there with me,
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Luke 10, verses 25 -37. This is God's word for us this morning.
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This is the story of the compassionate Samaritan. It starts in verse 25.
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And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall
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I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What's written in the law?
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How do you read it? And he answered, 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.
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And he said to him, You've answered correctly. Do this, and you will live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
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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.
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Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
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So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
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But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
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Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying,
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Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.
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Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said,
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The one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, You go and do likewise.
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Let's pray. Father God in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity to be together as your people.
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God, we desire this morning to worship you in spirit and truth, and we pray that your Holy Spirit would be here this morning, would be softening hearts so that this word of yours would fall upon and bring about change in us.
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We cannot change ourselves. We cannot love out of our own strength. We desire to love radically, like we see this
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Samaritan in this passage. God, we desire to be your people and to love like you love us.
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God, we give you thanks and praise for a beautiful morning or an opportunity to fellowship together and even have a picnic together to break bread and to eat together.
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God, it's a privilege to be in your presence with your people. In your name we pray. Amen. Thank you,
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Dave. Thank you everyone up here and sacrificing and giving of your time and skill to allow us to worship in song.
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So again, we're in the Gospel of Luke chapter 10, the Compassionate Samaritan.
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So the gospel accounts are a form of literature, they're narrative, and they're telling a story, a chronology of Christ's life.
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And we're going to be there, and what I thought we'd do a little bit different is, because I think that while we prepared to go to the mission field, we kind of put some tools under our belt of how to share the gospel.
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One of them was to share stories. I think the human brain is kind of wired specifically for stories.
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Like, I can even notice up here if I start lecturing, just talking, talking, you know, people can drift, but then as soon as I start sharing a personal story, everybody's like, what?
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They just kind of dial in a little bit better. I think there's something about stories, and even experienced it on the way here this morning, walking, we live in the village, walking with my kids, and I started telling another story, and what
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I mean, and this, I don't know how long ago I told about my junior high, what I did before school, walking the, and they're like, oh yeah, this is where you walked around, yeah, yeah.
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They remembered that story somehow, they forget everything else, but they remember story. So what I'd like to try to do this morning is, we're going to hear a story, we've already heard it, we're going to,
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I'm going to tell it as a story, and I just encourage you, maybe not to read along, just listen as a story, so that it's maybe just in our minds, maybe you experience it a little bit different.
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So I'm not going to quote it exactly as it is in scripture, and I don't want you to be, you know, freaking out that we're going to go down some heretical trail, because we've changed the word of God, we're going to go through it line by line and verse by verse, so we'll get back to it, but just kind of understand it from a story perspective.
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So we're in the Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25, it starts like this, it says, behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test.
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He asked Jesus, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus responds, what does the law say?
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How do you read it? So the lawyer responds to Jesus's question, says, you shall love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
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And Jesus responds to the lawyer saying, you've answered correctly, go do this and you will live.
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But the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, who is my neighbor?
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To which Jesus answers with a parable, and he says, a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, departed, leaving him half dead.
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Now by chance, a priest was going down that way, saw him, and went to the other side.
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So likewise, a Levite came to that place, that road, saw him, and went to the other side.
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But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to that place, saw him, and had compassion.
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Went to him, bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, pouring on oil and wine, then put him on his animal, and brought him to an inn, and cared for him.
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Then the next day, gave two denarii to the innkeeper saying, you take care of him, and if you spend any more,
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I will repay you when I return. So Jesus says to the lawyer, who do you think showed mercy, or who was a neighbor to this man who fell among robbers?
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And the lawyer responds, the one who showed mercy. So Jesus responds to the lawyer saying, you go do likewise.
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So that's the scripture, that's what we're going to be going through this morning. I think it's helpful as we think about that story, you guys all kind of just heard it, to go through and look at the characters in the story, and identify maybe what are the characteristics, what can we learn from the text about them, and then we'll go to some application at the end.
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And so we see right off the bat, it says behold. So this is Luke's account, and Luke has just gone through chapter 10, giving different scenarios, or telling little paragraphs about how
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Jesus is ministering intimately with his disciples. They're following him, and he just gave them power.
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These 72 disciples, they went out, and they had great, just things went really well, and they came back in the reporting, and it's just sort of this intimate circle.
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And now we see Jesus in this, where this starts, Luke says behold. And I've heard Don say it several times, like that behold in English is like, check this out, like you got to pay attention to this, behold.
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So we see this, and it says behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test. A lawyer.
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So let's just pause on the lawyer, and just think about the lawyer for a second. What do we know about lawyers? Lawyers are students of the law.
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They're experts in the law. And we know what a lawyer is in our current context, and there's lots of different lawyers, and different law to study.
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But in this context, it would have been somebody who was an expert in Mosaic law, the religious.
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This would have been a religious expert, and he wouldn't have been some, like it wasn't just appointed some nepotistic crony, like here, you're in this cabinet member now, we're just, you're my son,
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I'm going to put you there. He would have had to earn it. He would have had to shown himself. He would have been well studied in it.
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And so we see him. What does he do? He stands up, and he asked Jesus a question, and he addressed
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Jesus as teacher. So he does two things. I mean, he stands up. He obviously could have been, he could have just sat there.
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And I think in our current culture, we would say, you know, somebody just kind of cavalier sitting in the back of a guy teaching, and just sipping whatever they would sip at that time.
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Like, it seems a little disrespectful. And likewise, I think that's the case here, because he addresses him,
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Jesus, as teacher. So he's showing respect to Jesus. He could have been disrespectful, but who is he signaling?
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Jesus is there just teaching his disciples. Who does this lawyer want to signal respect to? He cares about how the crowd is perceiving him.
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So he's, here's a studied man, and there's this man, Jesus, going around claiming to be the
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Son of God. He's casting out demons. He's doing miracles. He's showing up in synagogues, opening up their scrolls, their prophecies, and saying, that's about me.
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So this guy is out, this lawyer is coming around here, and this Jesus teach. He knows the law really well.
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Probably doesn't have much category for Jesus. It's an opportunity for him to sort of, the lawyer to sort of glow up, sort of flex, and put this new guy in check, right?
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And so he asked him a question. And what does he ask him? He says, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
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What shall I do to inherit eternal life? I think that's a pretty good question. I give the lawyer some, you know, some credit.
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If you were in his shoes, what would, you know, this Jesus guy shows up, what would you ask him?
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But reading some of the commentaries, they seem to identify that this was a common question among people that studied religious law at that time.
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This wasn't sort of just a personal question, but he understood that if you study these things, it's a tough answer.
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So again, he's desiring, it shows right there, that he's desiring to test Jesus. He wants to bring
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Jesus down, and kind of probably exalt himself. So what shall I do?
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So he's looking for what can I do? He wants the minimum requirements to inherit eternal life. He wants eternal life, and he wants to know what he must do.
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What is the minimum? And I think we can kind of relate to that question. Like what, just to, I can do a lot of stuff, but what, make sure
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I'm doing the thing I have to do, right? And so Jesus can respond in a lot of ways.
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You might think that Jesus would respond like, great question, you know, just trust in me. I'm going to die for your sins, you know,
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I'm the provision for you. I'm glad you asked, but he doesn't. In fact, he does something that's a little bit, almost condescending.
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Like I have kids, and I give them a certain amount, they all want to play video games all the time. So like Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, they get one hour of, we call it app time, each of those days.
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And so if they come to me on a Monday or Wednesday, and they ask, can I play video games? I could say no, or I can kind of lead them along and say, well, what day is it?
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Is that a day you can play the apps? And so they can, oh yeah, yeah. So it kind of feels condescending when Jesus says, what does the law say?
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How do you read it? What does the law say? Because this man wants to know, this lawyer wants to know, what does he have to do to get eternal life?
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So Jesus kind of pulls him in with that, with a question, what must you do? Well, what does the law say?
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You want law? A pastor, Tim Keller, says, a quote from him, he says, the law is a way of life, not a way to life.
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So this lawyer is looking for a way to life through the law. So Jesus kind of doubles down and he says, what does the law say?
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How do you read it? So like, again, it's in your court. What do you think it says? And so he does pretty well. Again, he shows that he is approved a student of the law because he quotes
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Deuteronomy 6, which is called the Shema in the Judaic religion.
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They still quote it. They teach it to their children's every day. They teach it diligently, it says, and they, they, you know, put it on their foreheads and on their, the tops of their doors and they walk wherever they go, they talk about this.
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It's, you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind. And that's, that's kind of repetitive,
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I mean, it's just all in, it's just complete. It's always all, all, all, all. And so he does a great job inciting that, but he goes a little bit further because he says, and love your neighbor as yourself.
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So that's a pretty good answer. If you had just the Old Testament and wanted to figure out what you had to do to inherit eternal life, and you came back with that,
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I think you did pretty well. There's a passage in Leviticus, like 19, that talks about maybe loving your neighbor, but it's, it's pretty amazing.
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But I think, maybe, because Jesus gave the same answer to when scribes were trying to test him, they would ask him, which do you think is the most important commandment?
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And he would answer with this exactly. And he would say, all the commandments hang on this.
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So the, the, the lawyer did a pretty good job of kind of maybe throwing Jesus' answer back at him, like this is what you say, without actually saying that.
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And so Jesus is like, no, that's wrong. You know, I'm the fulfillment of the law. No, he doesn't say that.
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Jesus responds to the lawyer, what does he say? He says to the lawyer, you've answered correctly. Go, do this.
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So again, Jesus kind of pulls him along, and he's like, you want to do something for eternal law?
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Here. Here's the law. Do that. You will live. So he answers truth.
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He kind of doubles down on the law. If you want to keep the law, do it. You will live. So that was, that's kind of amazing.
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But now we see the lawyer showed up to test Jesus, and now he's kind of looking for some safe ground to retreat to, like, oh,
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I want, it wasn't really about me, this was about you, but now I got to keep the whole law. And so what does he say?
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He comes back with a question of his own, saying, what does he say? He desired to justify himself, right?
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He wanted to justify himself. Who is my neighbor? Just kind of rings of some kind of Clinton Lewinsky scandal type request.
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Who is, I don't even know who my neighbor is. How can I, you know, he's just scrambling and really trying to weasel out of it, right?
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And I think, I don't know, maybe we can kind of relate to that idea that, you know, we can be good, but we have all these caveats on how we love people.
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Like, I can do that, but right there, just that kind of little thing. He's looking, again, for the minimum thing that he has to do, but also he's not looking to expand the amount of people he can love.
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He's looking for a narrow, he wants to narrow it down. Like, what is the smallest, what do
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I have to do? If I can just make it this small, then it's something attainable. And so that's where we see Jesus give a parable.
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So there really was a lawyer in human history, and there really was a man named Jesus, son of God.
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But then this parable is sort of Jesus telling a small story to illustrate, to draw his attention to something as a teaching tool.
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So now we start the parable, and he answers this question. So the lawyer's looking like, who is my neighbor?
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And Jesus tells this story, this parable. He says, a man, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
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So what do we know about the man? What does the text tell us about the man? Not a lot, right?
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A man, it's a human, an image bearer of God. Just like a illegal immigrant, a refugee, your neighbor, the president, an unborn human, all image bearers of God.
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Doesn't matter if it's Republican, Democrat, you're looking for some kind of category. The lawyer wants, is he an
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Ohio State fan, or just who is this guy that you're talking about? Because he wants to know, he's looking for who, who do
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I need to love, right? And so he says, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
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If you have a map in your Bible, maybe, or you've looked at, you'll look on a map, and you'll see Jericho is actually above Jerusalem.
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Like, how is he going down? And it refers to the topography, so I threw up that map there, that it's actually
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Jerusalem is 2 ,500 feet above sea level, whereas Jericho is about 800 feet below sea level.
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So it truly is going down from one to the next. And it's actually famous because it goes through some pretty treacherous territory, winding through the rocks.
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It was called like the Path of Blood or something like that in those days, because robbers could hide in caves above those tight spots, and they could just box you in, and you had nowhere to go.
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So it was a really treacherous route. And I think, you know, do we have any treacherous roads here that were just scared to drive down the road?
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And I kind of struggled to think of anything like that. Like, I grew up near Flint, Michigan.
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Flint has a little bit higher crime rate than Kalamazoo, and I remember I grew up over there, came to Kalamazoo, and I was involved in a church and playing basketball.
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We played on the north side of Kalamazoo, and I remember all my church friends were like, be careful. And I was like, what?
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Because I drove down like the north side of Kalamazoo. Like, this is Candyland. This is not scary. I've seen a lot worse than this.
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And one thing that popped in my mind, thinking about a treacherous road, is when I was young, and my dad would take us to Tiger Stadium.
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So this is before Comerica Park, and this is on Michigan and Trumbull. And we'd go to the night game, and my dad's a big guy.
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He's like 6 '4", 250, and I just never felt scared around him. And the game would get out kind of late, and it would be, you know, dark, and we had to go north on 75, and everybody from that game would be letting out, and it would just be super packed.
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So to avoid traffic, we would kind of take back roads, and the road that we would take was Woodward, Woodward Avenue, and it's kind of a well -known road.
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Back in the heyday, it was just a glorious road, but by the time I was going down it, it was not known for good things.
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And we would go down, and it would be like no traffic on the road, and you'd see, like, my dad would point out there's drug dealers and prostitution, and he's like, we're not stopping at these red lights.
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I'm like, wow. Like, as a young man, I'm looking at my dad like, you're scared?
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Like, we're not even going to stop. And all of a sudden, this is probably worse than that, but just that kind of reputation, where just an area where you know bad things are going to happen.
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And so that's where Jesus is using this as an illustration, because he knows that the lawyer knows that Jesus is making up a story.
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He's used his first character as a man, and now he's using this road to illustrate. He's not, like, telling this allegory about Narnia or Middle Earth.
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He's just using something legitimate out of this guy's experience and twisting it to prove a point.
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So he talks about, the text says in the parable, the man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and just as the lawyer would expect, he fell among robbers.
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And what did the robbers do? They stripped him, they beat him, they depart from him, and they leave him half dead.
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So that's kind of what you would expect, but there's one little wrinkle there that just, maybe
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I'm overanalyzing criminal behavior. Usually a robber is like a thief, and they take stuff. It seemed like a different order of a criminal that would beat you, strip you, and leave you half dead.
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Like, that's a different kind of aggression. It kind of echoes like the text in John 10, it says the thief comes but to steal, to kill, and destroy.
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But Jesus came to, we might have life and have it more abundantly, or have it more to the full. So we see these robbers there.
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It doesn't even say that they do any real robbing, but what do we see about the man? They strip him, and they beat him, and they just leave him there half dead.
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This man is destitute. We don't know a lot about him. We don't know why he was on that road. We don't know what he was up to.
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But the text says he was, the robbers just were not nice to him, and he's left there.
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And to the extent of the stripping, I'm not clear, but at least he was ashamed. If he's in his underwear, or without underwear, it seems to be a shameful spot.
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And it's not like he can just, you know, somebody can show up and give him, you know, a hot meal, and say go in peace, or give him 10 bucks, and say go be well.
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He has nothing to offer this world. He can't just start picking his life back up, and putting the pieces back together.
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He was about to die, half dead, on his way to becoming full dead, it seems like. He's not in a good spot, right?
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So what do we see next? We see Jesus introduces three characters, and each of these characters is specifically chosen, because they are categories of people.
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And that's what this lawyer is looking for, categories of people. And so he gives the first two. He says a priest, and then so likewise a
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Levi. And they both come to the place, and they both do the same thing. They see the man, and they pass by to the other side.
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So they kind of, they don't just walk by him, ignore him. They could have done that. They could have just acted like they didn't see him.
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But the text says they saw him, so they're accountable. They saw this man, and they passed by and went to the other side.
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So some of the, I guess first we'll talk about the priest and a Levi, their role.
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So they would have been, unlike the lawyer who would have, I think, earned his place in society, shown himself, studied, shown himself to be an expert in a lot.
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A Levi and a priest, they were set apart by God by their lineage. They were from the tribe of Levi.
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They were appointed to work in the temple, to work in the inner sanctuary of the temple, where people went to worship in Jerusalem.
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They, of all people, they were the ones that had the mindset, we are set apart. Literally, God set them apart for this work.
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That's exactly who they were. They were set apart. And so some of the commentaries will talk about like, if this man, they may have not been sure if he was dead.
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And if he was dead, then they really want to steer clear of him. Like, because then they would have to go through all this ritual because he's unclean, and they're clean, and they didn't want to die in the temple.
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So they would have to do all this stuff. But if you, the text says he was going down from Jerusalem, so they would have just been coming back.
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That doesn't really seem to give them a lot of credit. If they're leaving the place where they needed to be clean, they would have lots of time now.
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And also, it seems like it's really common at that time for the priest to live in Jericho, but they pass by on the other side.
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And I don't know how you feel about it, but maybe they had this mentality, like, you knew this was a dangerous road.
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Why are you out here? You kind of got what you deserve. And that might sound harsh, but I can see it in my own life, and I'll be a little vulnerable.
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Like, you get off the highway, and you see these people begging for change. It's like, come on, man.
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Or like, when we were in Indonesia, there's a lot of different tribal groups there. And all of our, we were being robbed pretty routinely.
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And we would be robbed by what appeared to be one people group would be robbing us. And then we would see them on the street, the same people group, not the exact people, we hope.
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And they would just hold out their hand. They wanted money. It's like, we would try to engage them in a conversation.
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They would just say, money, money. That's all they would say. Just like, I'm not an ATM. You just feel like you can come up and craft different reasons not to help.
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It's not that hard to come up with excuses or categories. And I think there's a place for those.
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But that's where we can kind of maybe identify with something that some of the things that the Levites and the priests were doing.
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But then Jesus introduced a character in this story that's really going to bother the lawyer.
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He says, but a Samaritan. A Samaritan as he journeyed. And you probably know, but I'll just explain what a
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Samaritan would have been to the lawyers. A lawyer would have been from the Jewish faith. A Samaritan would have been kind of like a traitor.
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Like, they were part of the Israel, the kingdom of Israel, separated into northern and southern kingdoms. Samaritans would have been from that northern kingdom.
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And they sold out. They intermarried and mingled with the pagans. And it just, I kind of get it.
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Like, you know when you ever watch like CNN or something like that, and you see a prominent Christian pastor on there, somebody claiming
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Christ. And they're from the left. And they're like, do you believe that Jesus is the only way to go to heaven?
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And you see the, you know, given the opportunity to share the gospel. And they're like, no, I think there's lots of ways to heaven. You're like, no, you can't be claiming
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Christ and then doing that. And just like, that's worse than the guy that says there is no God. You know, because that's true to their belief system.
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And so I think I understand why the Samaritans were so hated. But there's a couple other examples, like specifically the
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Samaritan, the woman at the well in John's account, where Jesus goes and minister her.
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And she's immediately the Samaritan woman saying, well, you say we should worship in Jerusalem, but we say it should be here.
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And the classic example is just prior to this in Luke chapter nine. You can go read it, but I'll summarize it in my own terms.
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Luke chapter nine talks about Jesus wanted to go to prepare to go into Jerusalem.
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So Jesus sends messengers into this village of Samaritans. He says,
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I want to come there and prepare. And I didn't study what all it meant to prepare, but it doesn't matter. And they come back, the messengers come back and they're like, look, it's a
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Samaritan village and you want to go to Jerusalem. They don't think that's where you should go. And they're like, nah, you can't, can't come here.
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And Jesus's disciples, James and John, they respond like, that's it with these guys.
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This is what they say. They say, do you want Jesus, do you want us to call down fire and consume these guys, the whole village?
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That was their response. Like that seems to be the appropriate response. Just wipe out the whole people group of the Samaritans because it's enough with their clowning, enough with their antics, we got to wipe them out.
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But you know, Jesus quickly rebuked that, but that was their mentality. Like can't stand the Samaritans. So when
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Jesus introduced the Samaritans, you kind of got a picture of that people group that you just don't like for whatever reason, if you have one, the lures like the
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Samaritan, that's the hero of the story. And what does the Samaritan do? The text says, as he journeyed, so he's on a journey, he's got other things to be doing, but he's as he journeyed, he comes to the place and he sees the man, he sees the man and he has compassion.
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Now as a guy, I'm not super good at emotions. I have trouble even identifying when I'm feeling emotions.
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But one thing I know is I can't fake an emotion. So compassion, it would have been difficult for,
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I can't imagine how you fake compassion. You can't just put on compassion and I'm going to pretend that I'm going to be compassionate.
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So he feels it. Something from within him has compassion on this man that he sees there. Because just like the
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Levite and the priest, he saw the man, the text says. And there's something significant about seeing, indicating like you are aware of this need, of this hurt.
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What does he do? He goes to the man, it says, and he binds up or is that the right past tense? He bounded up, binds up his wounds and it says with oil and pours on oil and wine.
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And at that time, that's as good as it gets for medical care. I mean, oil would have been a good salve and wine would have been a good antiseptic to, and he binds up the guy's wound.
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So at that time, that's as good a care as you can do. So he comes to him and not only does he just do that, but then he takes the man, puts him on his animal, doesn't say what kind of animal, and transports him.
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Again, you're in a bad spot. You're naked and ashamed and wounded and about to die. And this man comes and, and boom, binds up your wounds.
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Jeez, can somebody help me with binds? I don't know why this isn't, binds up his wounds and takes him to an inn and cares for him all night.
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So whatever this guy's Samaritan's plans were, he's nope. This is now my prayer. This is all I'm going to do is take care of you.
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That's my number one goal. He does a good job, but not only that, he, the next morning, he gives two denarii.
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Denarii is like a day's, one denarii is like a day's wage. So two of those.
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So I don't know what you think a day's wage is, but that's a pretty good amount. And he tells the innkeeper, now you go and do, or you, you take care of him.
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And he says, if you spend any more, I'll repay you. So it's just hard for, the Samaritan sets the bar pretty high, right, for how to take care of a stranger you've never met.
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You had other plans and now you're going to be taking care of this guy with all your being, it seems like.
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He just does a phenomenal job. I don't know if you can see that, but the, the, the real rub is then when it comes back,
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Jesus turns it back to the lawyer and he says to the lawyer, ask him the question again.
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With questions, you kind of can get a little bit more at the man's heart. And he asked the lawyer, what does he ask him? He said, who do you think?
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So again, I'm going to allow you to have some intellectual integrity. You, you're, you know, you're in a corner here, you know, who do you think showed mercy?
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And the lawyer, what does he say? He says, the man, the man who showed mercy, of course.
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But you'll notice the lawyer doesn't say the Samaritan. Just again, highlighting that idea that he didn't, couldn't even bring himself to, you know, identify the hero of the story is from, is a
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Samaritan. And so we've kind of seen this, a good illustration for him in terms of he's looking for who is my neighbor and Jesus has turned it against him and shown him that, look, it's not so much who your neighbor is, but what did he answer?
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How do you neighbor? Who, who was a neighbor to the man who had fallen?
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That's what Jesus answers with. He gives him a man who is completely anonymous, a human that has fallen on hard times.
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So you can't worry about who you should be helping, but what Jesus answers with this, how, how you neighbor?
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And the man answers correctly and Jesus comes back again. What must I do? What shall I do to inherit eternal life?
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And Jesus ends with, you go and do likewise. Do as the Samaritan, if you want to do that.
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So I think that Tim Keller quote is really good, that it's a way of life. The law is a way of life, not a way to life.
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Now, there's one thing I think that the lawyer, you know, he, he's trying to narrow the, the people group that he must be loving or to fulfill the law.
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And I read even in some like extra biblical literature, and I haven't spent much time in those. So there's this book of wisdom called the
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Syrac, written between like the end of the Old Testament and the New Testament. And again,
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I haven't read much of those, but if you ever like, I read some of that and immediately like, this is not the
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Bible. It just looks different. But so if you ever doubt the legitimacy of the Bible as God's word, just read something that's not the
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Bible. Like, yeah, that's different. But what the lawyer would have known is that they had a verse, chapter 12, verse four in the
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Syrac that says, you shall give to the devout, but not to the sinners. So there's that mentality of just not taking care of sinners.
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So that narrows it quite a ways down. But what I want to do is focus a little bit here in our last few minutes together on the application.
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And so when we hear a story, oftentimes we can identify with a particular character in the story. And so we have in the story, we have the
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Jesus and the lawyer. I guess if you're identifying with Jesus, that's probably, that's above my pay grade.
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I don't know how to deal with you there. But if it's somebody like the lawyer, maybe you can just see yourself criticizing a lot of what
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Jesus is talking about. Maybe you're outside of really recognizing he has a son of God and there's definitely room for that.
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But if we just talk about the parable, who do we identify ourselves with? So we have the priest and the
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Levite. And again, that's a way where we can kind of justify our actions.
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Why we don't help somebody, why we don't do this or do that when we know that we could do those things.
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We come up with some kind of reason why, just not today, I got to take care of my family. And some of them are legitimate.
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And we can identify them. But in the end, that's kind of the motivation in its heart would be guilt, right?
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Like, I need to do this, but I don't. And guilt's not a good motivator.
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That will fail you. So you can't really rely on that. And then maybe you can identify yourself as the
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Samaritan. You kind of see, I can relate to him. Like maybe you're so far like, yes,
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I am killing it. I am the Samaritan. Jesus probably had me in mind when he thought of the Samaritan story.
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Maybe that's you and maybe you have some room to grow yet. But if a lot of us are, we're, you know, we see the
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Samaritan setting the example so high, we're like, I'm almost a Samaritan. I think if I just try a little bit harder, you know, and then the motivation there would be like, you need to be working harder.
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Work harder. But what is the ultimate motivation in that scenario? You want approval. If I work harder, if I'm more like the
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Samaritan, then I will be approved by God. Then God will like me more. He wants me to be like the
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Samaritans. Like Jesus asked this man to be like the Samaritan. He wants me to do more. Or if you're in Christian circles, or maybe you just society in general, if you are kind and loving to the least and the indigent people, your peers will think more highly of you.
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And so then the motivation there is to be thought of well by your friends and by your, you know, colleagues and people that you care about what they think of you.
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And I think we can all recognize that that's not a good, certainly not a pure motivator, but that's ultimately going to fail you because people are capricious and we can't rely on how they think of us.
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Ultimately, we like to see people fail. Isn't that weird? I don't know. Again, I keep giving these illustrations of my wicked heart and maybe you're like, man, he is broken.
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And that's true. But like, I don't know, if you see somebody in there, I don't know, things just seem to be going really well for them.
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Like their kid just got a scholarship to play ball at a Big Ten school and it wasn't even their best sport.
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You're just like, awesome. Or, you know, like they're falling on hard times and you just kind of have this genuine, like, sounds a little strong, but there's just some part of you, like, say for if somebody like just lived their life however they wanted to live.
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They had two boats and three jet skis and then they lost their job and now they're filing for chapter 11 and they really need some help.
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Like, you kind of got what you had coming. Like, you lived frivolously. I'm not going to step into that. And so there's that mentality.
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And I think of the priest and the Levite. They had the role in the synagogue church, in the synagogue to distribute alms, to distribute the money to the needy.
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And they did that on a routine basis. And even when
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I was, as an elder here, I was the treasurer for a spell. There would be people who come to the church and they would, you know, they fell on hard times.
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And it was oftentimes my role. We would say, yeah, we'll help you out with your heat bill or whatever it is and we'll pay for that. And it would require me as the treasurer to distribute the funds.
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And I would go there and it would be kind of this close contact, intimate relationship with them. Like, our policy wasn't we're just going to give you here's a few hundred dollars.
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We're actually going to pay the bill. So I need the account number and that kind of stuff. And they were always super grateful. And it was always just my mentality.
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It's not me, it's the church. It's not me, it's the church. And I could see that even with the priest and the Levites, like they just weren't even motivated to take care of this guy because maybe they just had this mindset.
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They're set apart and they just do this as a job. But we talk about who we see ourselves in this story.
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If it's the Samaritan, the priest, the Levite. But the reality is we talk about motivation.
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The person we should identify with is the man. The man that's beaten, dead, half dead, naked, ashamed on the side of the road.
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And what happens to him? He has nothing to offer this world, nothing to get back right.
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And this Samaritan comes and takes care of him, does everything for him. So also Jesus Christ died for us.
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While we were yet sinners, Christ picked us up. He lifted us. And now
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Jesus lived that. He fulfilled the law completely. And now he gives that to us.
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He imputes his righteousness. And so that's the really the only motive, the only reason why we can love differently than the world loves each other, in a radically different way like the
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Samaritan is, out of a outpouring of what Jesus Christ has done for us. So it's a constant daily process of recognizing what
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Jesus Christ has done for us. That is the motivation. It's not that we recognize Jesus Christ died for me, now
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I'm secure in my eternity, and now I'm just going to keep growing and growing. No, it's a constant loop every day coming back to recognizing how wretched and destitute we really are.
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And seeing how much Jesus Christ has given us in his death, his resurrection, his victory over death.
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He's given it us. We are now, what's crazy, joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
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Joint heirs to eternity. When you consider that, that will put you in the right motivation, the right mindset, that only then can
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Jesus's love flow through you onto others. So it's not about feeling guilty,
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I need to do more, or justifying my behavior. It's a constant coming back to what Jesus Christ has done for us.
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So, if you're new here, each week at Recast we celebrate what we call the Lord's Supper. It's an opportunity to recognize what
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Jesus Christ has done for us. What we just talked about, this is the gospel. We were on the side of the road, dead and broken, and Jesus died for us.
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And so we take, there's stations set up in the back, we take a cracker and we take a little cup of juice to reflect that his body was broken for us, and his blood was spilt for us, for the forgiveness of our sins.
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And we do this corporately. We're all here together as the body of Christ. It's an opportunity for us to symbolically show one another, yes,
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I am in Christ, and to celebrate what has been done for us. So if you are not there, if you don't recognize
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Jesus Christ as your Savior, just sing the songs with us. Consider who Jesus Christ is, and did he die for you?
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Excuse me. But if you are here, and you are in Christ, please join us in celebrating this, and partaking in the
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Lord's Supper. It is a, it's an honor, it's a privilege, and it really is a celebration. So I'm going to pray, and we're going to sing a song, and while we're singing,
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I invite you to join us as the body of Christ in communion, in celebrating the Lord's Supper. Let's pray.
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Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for who you are, and what you did for us on that cross.
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God, you are powerful, and you lived a righteous life, and it's inconceivable that we can now take on your righteousness.
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When we are in you, you impute your righteousness, and we can become joint heirs. God, I don't want to preach more, but I just want to exalt in you, for who you are, and what you've done for us.
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You are an almighty God, an all -loving Father. Help us now to just remember your sacrificial love for us, and with a joyous heart, and to take it in a mindset of reverence and awe, and that that would then motivate us as we go out this week, or even at the picnic, just to be your people.
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is to show the love of Christ, and it's in the name of our Savior we pray. Amen.