Enemy Love (part 3) - Who Is My Neighbor? - [Matthew 5:43-47]

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Bible In A Year - Revelation (part 4)

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These bring back memories, these words, lay on ground, light fuse, get away.
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Some time ago I got some old inch and a half firecrackers out that I've had for about 20 years. Black cats they were called.
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There's a whole string of them. And so I thought I'd be cool in front of the kids and we had some friends over.
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Won't mention by name, the Johansons. And I'll watch this kids and I went out with a little match, try to follow the rules, lay on ground.
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I lit the fuse except 20 year old fuses on black cats don't go slowly if you know what
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I mean. They are rapid fire and before I know it they're blowing up in my face and my hand.
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And so I began running back to the house, fall flat down on my leg. Had to brush it off like I was fine.
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The passage today is so explosive.
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Before we get into it I want to say lay on ground, light fuse and get away.
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It's an absolutely wild passage. As you know we've been in Matthew chapter 5,
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Sermon on the Mount. And a few weeks ago we asked ourselves the question how do we love our enemies?
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What does love look like? And we found through Paul and through Jesus and a little bit of Peter that love prays for enemies.
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Love pursues peace with enemies. Love triumphs over enemies with good replacing the enemy's evil.
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And then two weeks ago we looked at not just how to love people who are enemies but why.
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And you remember what the answer was? Let me read you Matthew chapter 5 and I will give you the answer of why we are to love our enemies from Jesus Christ's own words.
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Jesus said in Matthew 5 .43. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Why? For the result, verse 45, so that you may be sons of your
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Father who is in heaven. For He causes His Son, I repeat that,
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His Son, He causes His Son to rise on the evil and on the good.
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And sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?
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Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?
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Do not even the Gentiles do the same. How do we love our neighbors?
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How do we love our enemies? We pray for them. Why should we do that? Why should we seek their best and seek their good?
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Because Jesus, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, our triune
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God, blesses and does good for the unrighteous. But you might ask yourself the question today.
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Why is one thing to love? How is another thing to love? But I wonder who might
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I love? Who is my neighbor? And if I ever say to you, who is my neighbor? What passage comes to your mind right off the top of your head?
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I bump you and I say, who is your neighbor? You say, the parable that they even name hospitals after.
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The parable of the Good Samaritan. And let's go to that very famous passage for today. This nitroglycerin -like passage,
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Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. You might think you know this passage, but I'm going to just push it a little bit homiletically.
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I don't think you understand this passage. I'm quite confident that some do.
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But I'm even more confident that many people in this congregation today don't understand the authorial intent.
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God's meaning for Luke chapter 10. We become so familiar with it that it's just part of our natural lives.
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Even unbelievers know it so well, but we don't know why it was written. We don't know the real purpose.
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And we just use it as, well, who's my neighbor, and just leave it as that. But I think this passage today will help us understand
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Matthew 5 better when Jesus says, I want you to love your enemies. And we will see in this passage that God expects us to love everyone
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He providentially places before us. At home, at school, in our own neighborhoods, wherever we go, we are to love those that God has providentially placed before us.
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And we are to love in action, just not with theology. In other words, we are to love with deed, and love with fruit, and love with sweat, and love with toil.
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Now, you can't really give a three -point outline to a parable. Why? Because parables weren't meant to have three points in a poem.
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And so Jesus is going to use this story to make a point. And it is one of those lay on ground, light fuse, and get away, because before you can end up running, it just explodes.
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And we will learn from this parable many things. But we are going to learn especially that intellectual knowledge is not good enough.
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But God requires obedience. That is to say that lip service isn't good enough when it comes to loving neighbors, but God wants us to actually do it.
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Now, when you go to Luke chapter 10 for the Good Samaritan, it doesn't occur until verse 30.
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And this is called a parable for a reason, because that's the type of figure of speech it is. It's a story, a parable.
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When you cross a sparrow in a parable. We are meeting with the
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Mozambique people today during Sunday school, and there will be about nine going, Lord willing. So they have to work on their testimonies, and I'll make them stand up in front of everyone and give their testimony to the other group.
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And I said, when you're going to speak for the Lord and you want to honor him, you just have to say to yourself, you know what,
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I'm going to say stupid things, and I'm going to say dumb things, but I'm here to proclaim the truth. And my hope is that you say, this is an awesome
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Savior. Jesus is an awesome God. This is an awesome lesson. God, you are great, and you're a great
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God. Well, that's a pretty good preacher, or he was a pretty bad preacher. And so here in this parable,
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Jesus is going to teach a story, and he's going to teach a lesson. He's going to use very common things in life to drive home a point in a way that,
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I would argue, can't be driven home a better way. This is the best way to drive this home.
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Now, what do you do with parables in interpretation? Well, we need to have some kind of framework for interpreting parables, because, true or false,
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Jesus preached parables a lot. He preached them often. It was often for Jesus to give a parable, yes.
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And we need to understand how to interpret parables, because parables are given for two reasons.
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One reason is to enlighten and educate believers and followers.
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But there's another thing that a parable does, and that is harden or make more callous unbelief.
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Parables, in other words, conceal truth, or they reveal truth. We want to make sure we understand this truth, as Jesus gives parables many, many times.
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Some say up to 50 parables. And when you study parables, the best thing to do is think of context and the natural story and the meaning.
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But the most important thing with parables is you want to make sure you understand the situation. Why did
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Jesus give the parable? For what purpose did he say these things? Was he just kind of a jukebox and kind of randomly somebody would push some buttons and out would spit some 45 or some
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CD or whatever it is? No, he said it for a reason. And anytime you ever look at any parable in the
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Bible, you say, why was that given? What was the occasion? What was the situation? What was the purpose? And there you'll have the meaning.
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What's the context, and why was it given? And you can say to yourself, lastly, when
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I look at parables, I want to see context, I want to see natural meaning, and I want to see the situation, and then
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I want to make sure I take home the one or two key points. I don't want to make them walk on all fours. I don't want to have everything being an allegory.
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So using my own template, when we go into Luke 10, verse 30, what should we do?
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Just dive into the parable, or is there something we should do before that or ahead of time? Well, we want to do something ahead of time, and that is, why did
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Jesus say it? If the number one way to unlock the key of the parable's meaning is to find out why it was said by Jesus, we probably should do what?
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Go backwards. Why did Jesus say this? What was the prelude to it? What was he trying to teach?
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And this is where people lose the meaning of the Good Samaritan by not reading the section before, because the section before is the jumping -off place for the parable.
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I think about those gymnasts, and what are those big kind of horses that they have to jump over?
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They're not real horses, but they're like, yeah, those. When they run full blast, there's a little thing they jump off of, or else what happens?
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I've seen some of those things where they forget to jump, or they slip, and their head goes straight into the front of that horse, or the back of it, depending on your point of view.
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It is a disaster. The springboard to figure out the meaning of Luke 10, verse 30, is before it.
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And this is where all the firecracker stuff is. This is where the gunpowder is. Maybe that's why some people skip over it.
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So now let's go into verse 25 and find out why this was said so we can understand the meaning.
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It doesn't matter if we don't understand the meaning of something that doesn't do us any good. Luke 10, verse 25.
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And a lawyer stood up and put Jesus to the test. Stupid idea, by the way. Saying, teacher, what shall
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I do to inherit eternal life? The English text doesn't say it, but the Greek says, and behold.
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And behold, seemingly out of nowhere, here comes this very self -pious, self -righteous, pompous guy, and he's going to feign respect.
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He's going to say, well, you know what? When rabbis would be around, it was good manners.
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It was proper etiquette to stand up. I'm going to stand in your presence to show you some kind of respect.
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But the text has already told us he's going to be testing them. And Jesus is going to be tested by this guy, so it's just fake.
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It's fake etiquette. Now, lawyer doesn't mean lawyer here.
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A lawyer is, in this context, in the New Testament context, an expert, an expert in the
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Mosaic law. Someone that doesn't, you know, it's not some kind of lawyer that we would think of in our common thinking, down the street who helps us close a real estate deal.
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This was a lawyer who was an expert in Mosaic law. He knew that law,
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Moses, and he knew everything about it. That was his
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M .O., that was his life. And this man who knew
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Moses, don't miss that, he was a lawyer for the Bible. He stood up, kind of social courtesy, but still fake because he's got this insidious plot.
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And he stands up in the middle, like they would in the Middle East, and addressed the teacher. But he's testing. It's faking, it's feigning.
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He's going to try to catch Jesus in a trap, and the bait is this question. Class is eternal life.
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The pupil is testing the teacher. What do
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I do to inherit eternal life? He's going to test
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Jesus. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And at least he's got the idea that life eternal is inherited.
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It's not something that can be purchased. You can't buy it. You can't earn it.
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You can't work for it. It's something that's given to the children. When you die, your children get your inheritance, and they can't do anything to receive it, except have your name.
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And he asks the question. But what does Jesus do? Gives an answer. Oh, great question. No, there's a counter here.
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Here's a counter question. He comes tempting. Jesus sees through him, of course, because he's the triune
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God, a member of the triune God. He says, you know, what is written in the law?
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You say you're an expert in the law. Well, what's written in the law? How does it read to you? Now, if somebody asked me the question, what shall
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I do to inherit eternal life? What might I say? I'll tell you what. I don't talk like Jesus does, unless I force myself, because I would say, repent and believe.
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Others might say, ask Jesus in your heart. Others might say, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
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Others might say, well, it's the ABCs of Christianity. Admit you're a sinner. Believe Jesus in your heart.
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Confess Jesus as Lord, and you're in. Jesus says, what's written in the law?
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What a question. What a counter question. Then he says, how does it read to you?
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You're the scribe. Jesus doesn't say, well, you know, God wants your best life now, and let's just go for it.
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He says, what is in the text? Luke 10, verse 27.
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Jesus says, scribe, scribe me. So the scribe says in verse 27, you shall love the
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Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.
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And you know how I think he read that? Have you ever done memory work? You just want to kind of go really fast through the memory work, and it doesn't really have much meaning, and it's kind of like,
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I was telling Luke the other day when I was a kid, I prayed this every night. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to take. If I should die before I wake,
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I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen. Where's my GI Joe? He's an expert.
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He knows the law. And what does he say? He doesn't say this. You shall love the Lord, your
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God, with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength, and you should love your neighbor as yourself.
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I don't think he said it that way at all. No emphasis on with all.
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By the way, is that a good answer, theologically? Is it orthodox? You know what?
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That's almost the exact same answer that Jesus gives to someone else in Matthew 22.
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When asked the question, what's the greatest law? And he says, these are the two greatest laws. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
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That's the right answer, because Jesus gave the exact same answer in another occasion. But as you know, words have meanings.
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And the meaning to this Jew, this lawyer, was neighbors are other Israelites.
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Neighbors weren't these scallywag other people. Neighbors were homo. Neighbors weren't hetero.
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Neighbors were people who were like us, who were similar. In this particular case, Jewish. Everybody else wasn't my neighbor.
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And that's what he was thinking, because that's what they thought back then, a restricted narrowness to this idea of neighbor.
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I think I said last week when I worked in the hospitals, I saw many things. And I remember one time seeing a carotid endarterectomy.
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And it's your carotid artery, and it's filling up with plaque. And it fills up with plaque for two reasons.
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Number one, heredity. Number two, potato chips. And so it fills up. It's true. And it becomes a narrowing.
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There's a stenosis there. And it's a narrowing of that. And so the blood doesn't flow up to the brain well.
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So they have to go in, and they have to clear it out. And so, too, this lawyer has a narrowing.
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He has a stenosis -like view of who's the neighbor. And the neighbors are people like me, Jews. One dictionary said, definition of a neighbor, quote, any other man irrespective of race or religion with whom we live or whom we chance to meet.
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It doesn't matter what the social status is, what the people look like. Everyone's the neighbor.
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That's not what this guy thinks. So now what does Jesus say, verse 28? This is just mind -boggling to me.
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Jesus said to him, how do we know it was the right answer? Well, A, Jesus already has answered that elsewhere.
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But, B, Jesus says, you have answered orthos. You have answered correctly.
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You have answered straightly, rightly. You are orthodox. And I don't see in any parentheses
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Jesus clapping and applauding. Good job. Way to go. Atta boy. Go get them. You have answered correctly.
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And then here's one of these things that everybody misses. And you might want to underline this part. Do this and you will live.
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Present imperative. You continue to manufacture this, accomplish this, produce this, obtain this.
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You do this. And when he says do this, he's got all those alls there, all four alls, with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your might, your neighbor, as yourself.
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You do this, you're going to live. The guy said,
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I did it. He probably should have said, well, how well should I do it? He should have said, not, you know,
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I do this all the time. But you know what, I know I don't measure up to your standards. Jesus says, you have answered correctly.
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And now Jesus is trying to push him to the edge of the cliff. So he jumps off of his own self -righteous corner.
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Friends, as a side note, you can have theology that is straight, correct, orthodox, biblical.
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You can sign off on the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed. You can sign off on all the
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Bible and still have faith that doesn't save, yes? Demonic faith, you can sign Westminster Confession Statement of Faith, Savoy Declaration, London Baptist Confession of Faith in 1689, the
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New Hampshire Baptist Declaration of Faith, et al. You just name them all and it doesn't do any good because what you believe doesn't matter because there should be orthodoxy married to orthopraxy.
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There should be belief and it is connected. The engine of belief is connected to the caboose of behavior.
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Conduct follows creed. And so Jesus knew he didn't do that. Jesus could have said all kinds of things, but to help us and to actually help him, he's trying to get to the bottom of this.
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It's not just thoughts. It's not just intellect. It's not just head knowledge and theological
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IQ and doctrinal SAT. It's more than that.
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You understand how to love people? Jesus said you're going to really love them then. It's more than an ideal.
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It's not naked belief. And what Jesus is doing here is what we all should do when we evangelize.
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We must make the gospel so biblical that unbelievers can't do it unless the Spirit of God makes them.
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Ever think of that? You should preach the gospel so high, if you preach it biblically, it will be so high, that nobody can hurdle it without the
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Spirit of God's help. Just this whole, you know, hi, are you a sinner? Yeah. I see people on TV.
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Have you ever told a lie? Yeah. And all these other things. And before you know it, off we go. And here it's so high, we can't get over it.
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God requires full obedience. But we like to see people get saved, and it's probably a good thing that we want them to get saved.
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But don't let your desire to see people get saved dilute the requirements of the gospel, because the gospel requirement is perfection.
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The gospel requirement comes from God, the perfect one. That's why even the faith that we have is from God, because if you were saved because of your faith, your faith isn't perfect.
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My faith's not perfect. You can't be saved by an imperfect faith. That's why the perfect God saves you, and you respond with a faith by God's grace and gift.
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We aren't saved because of faith, we're saved through faith. Faith says,
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I can't save myself. And here's this lawyer, you ever think about it? He's seeking to condemn
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Jesus, trying to rearrange everything so he's perfect and he fits in.
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What's the minimum I can do? What's the least common denominator? I just get along with lip service, and maybe other people where we live want to just get along with just the minimum amount of sacraments, and I'm in.
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And Jesus is going to say, well, smug Bible recital will not do it. I'm going to push you to the end.
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I'm going to push you to see your own sin. That's the most loving thing
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Jesus could do, is make people see their own sin. When you see your own sin, you realize standards of God are too high, and as Whitefield has said, trying to get to heaven on your own works is like trying to climb a ladder made of sand.
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Turn to Leviticus 18 .5, please. Leviticus 18 .5, as you notice in Luke 10 there, there's capital letters in the last quote, and that comes from the
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Old Testament. So when Jesus is talking to a lawyer who's good at Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, where do you think he quotes from?
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Ruth? Well, he could, but he quotes from Leviticus.
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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. In German, this would be known as Moses 3. Moses 3, chapter 18.
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He's just saying, all right, you're the expert. Here you go. I'm going to try to help you to get you to see your sin. Leviticus 18 .5,
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so you shall keep my statutes and my judgments, by which a man may live if he does them.
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I am the Lord. Do them all.
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Do them all perfectly. Do them all with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you can have eternal life.
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What's our response? What's the right response? God have mercy on me, the sinner.
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I can't do it. My back is up against the wall. I mean,
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I never have seen a verse like this. I remember the first time I read it. Listen, don't turn there.
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Just listen to Galatians 3 .10. For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written,
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Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.
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If you want works to get to heaven, you've got to do them all, and you've got to do them all perfectly, and you've got to do them all perfectly, since you are in the womb.
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The right response is, I can't. I don't. I never will. I need help. If you don't save me,
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God, I am done, undone. I'm doomed. So how does he respond? He bowed his knee, genuflected, and said, verse 29, back to Luke 10, please.
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What did he do? He just couldn't do it. People love their sin too much. Luke 10 .29,
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here's the response. So sad. It's heartbreaking. You've got friends probably like this.
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Preach the gospel to them. You want them to understand their sin and run to the only Savior. But here's what they do.
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This is what all belief, unbelief does. This is what we did before God saved us. And if you're not a
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Christian, this is what you're doing right now. But, wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, and who's my neighbor?
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He doesn't get it. I have some theological terms for this. Duck and jive, bob and weave.
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That's what this is. I try to be nice to the
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Jews, but the Gentiles, no, I'm not going to do that. One man said, we know that the
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Jewish answer was, my neighbor is my fellow Israelite. There's a way in which this looks like the right answer.
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But the narrator helps us. He's trying to justify himself. He's trying to rationalize it. He's trying to move the focus off of him.
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Where did Cain get his wife? You're thinking about eternity, and you're getting back into this corner, and then you're trying to change the subject.
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We hear that all the time with unbelievers. They do that all the time. The Bible is written by man.
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I mean, on and on and on it goes. The only way the lawyer thinks that he can do what
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Jesus is saying, is to limit what Jesus was saying. In other words, here's the law.
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I've got to do something with the law, and limit the law. Because I can't do that. I'm not going to love my enemies, is what he's saying.
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He wants vindication. He wants his conscience to feel good. I mean, it's kind of tough after a while to assuage your conscience, and then you have to go use alcohol and other things, and feel good.
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Is it minimal obedience, or is it total? Is it by the mercy of God we're saved, or is it by something else?
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He doesn't want to live by mercy, so we can tell God hasn't given him mercy. But Jesus' words are like Nathan's long, craggy finger, probably full of arthritis.
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He is not going to let the pressure cooker be released. I'll never forget, my mom had the pressure cooker.
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She would cook things in the pressure cooker, and she used to say to me, now, if you play with that, this is like a hand grenade, and it could explode, and the outside of this pressure cooker could be like shrapnel.
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Don't play with that, son. Something's cooking in there.
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All of a sudden, steam coming out. I'm going to die.
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Jesus here is saying, you know what? There's no relief from you, because these self -righteous answers just get more of the law.
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That's the way we should preach to our friends. Don't give the Savior and relieve them when they don't think they need relief.
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People need to be desperate for salvation before they'll say, you know what? My righteousness is like a filthy rag.
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I mean, it takes an act of God working to say to yourself, the best I can do, Isaiah 64 says, is like a used menstrual cloth in the
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Hebrew. And Jesus says, you know what? You're not going to give me the right answer. I'm going to take a magnifying glass out, and here's the sun, and through the sun,
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I'm just going to burn you like I would an ant someplace like we did when we were kids. Jesus said, you've got to love perfectly, and you've got to love unlovable neighbors like Samaritans, like enemies.
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He wanted to justify himself. Luke 16 talks about the same thing, people who try to justify themselves in the sight of men, but Jesus said,
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God knows. So Jesus is going to now come to the parable, and he's going to do this.
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The who is my neighbor passive question is going to be moved to the who is my neighbor active response.
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Jesus is going to teach this man what doing the law is.
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You say you want to love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and your neighbors yourself. Okay, let me put the nail in the coffin with this parable.
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I'm not going to debate with you, Jesus says. I'm going to teach you. These people should have already known it.
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Leviticus said, do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbors yourself.
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You say, well, they just thought that was Jewish. How about later? The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself as you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
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I am the Lord your God. Jesus isn't going to debate. He's going to say,
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I demand obedience. And here comes the parable of the good Samaritan. You want to know who the neighbor is?
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Now at least we know why it was said this way and what Jesus was after. Verse 30,
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Jesus replied and said, man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him and went away leaving him half dead.
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Now remember, whenever you want to understand the Bible, you're thinking, here's Jesus 2 ,000 years ago in Israel talking to this
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Mosaic law expert. That's how this man is hearing it. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, 17 miles.
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They have great Bible programs now on the Internet. You just put the clicker on Jerusalem, drag it down to Jericho, and it goes 17 miles.
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They've even got altitudes now too, and you can see if you saw a side view, it would be down to Jericho, 3 ,000 or 3 ,300 feet down.
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There's lots of people who worked for Herod building things. They're already built now, and up to 40 ,000 workers have been laid off, if you will, and now they're just around.
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And there are robbers, and they're lurking, and they steal, and they strip, and they beat, and that's a good place to hide because there's all kinds of nooks and crannies and just little robbers' lairs there.
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Pompeii had to wipe out strongholds of robbers during the times of the Crusade there because you could build little forts and sneak up on people.
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The topography lends itself to hide. So here's the haunt of not just purse snatchers, but real felons.
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In 1852, Professor Hackett visited this area that Jesus spoke of, and he said this, no part of the traveler's journey is so dangerous as the expedition to Jerusalem.
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The Oriental pilgrims who repair to the Jordan have the protection of an escort of Turkish soldiers, and others who would make the same journey must either go in company with them or provide for their safety by procuring a special guard.
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Robbers can rush forth unexpectedly upon their victims and escape as soon almost beyond the possibility of pursuit.
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It's like Hosea says as the robbers are waiting for people. Raiders are waiting for the man.
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Scary, no vegetation, cliffs and gullies and limestone rocks. This is real spooky world.
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And what happened? He fell among robbers. The text says he was surrounded by them. He was encompassed by them. They gobbled him up as it were, like some amoeba attacking a parasite.
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Just engulfed him, circled him, went around him. Literally fell into the hands of robbers.
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And if you were in those days, you'd want their money and you'd want the people's clothes because clothes were valuable.
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You had some clothes and they were valuable. And so what do you think they took? They probably took the clothes and the money.
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They stripped both. Clothing and money stripped. The word there is the word for a snake stripping himself of his skin.
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So too these robbers stripped this man of his skin, his clothes. Zoological term.
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And what else did they do? They beat him. They gave him blows.
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They gave him bruises and wounds. You know what the Greek word is for bruises and wounds and beatings?
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Plagues. Because when you have a plague, it looks like you've been beaten up.
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And so this man has received a plague, but not a viral plague or an antimicrobial plague or something like that.
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It is a real plague of fists. And they left him what?
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Half dead. Only time the word is used in the Bible there is half dead. It's hemi -dead.
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What's half dead mean? Half dead. He's at death. He's been beaten to a pulp.
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By the way, if you're the Jewish lawyer thinking about it, what kind of guy do you think probably got beat up? You think the
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Jewish lawyer thinks this guy's a Jew or a Gentile? You know he's thinking it's a Jew. What's going to happen?
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Who's going to help him? There's tension. We know the end, but these people didn't.
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All's we need to know is there is an image bearer of God. He's providentially placed in this person's path.
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And there should be love for this person. Enemy, friend, neighbor, loved one.
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It's time to love. It's not just orthodoxy, but it's orthopraxy. Let's see what happens.
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I almost wish these next few words weren't in the Bible because they make me explain a lot of things, but verse 31.
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And by chance. Say, Pastor, do you believe in chance? Well, what
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Jesus means in the story is as it happened, kind of this guy shows up.
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It doesn't mean like there's real chance in the world because there's no such thing as chance. God providentially controls every molecule.
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There's no such thing as luck or fate. This is just storytelling is all this is. It's coincidence.
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From a man's perspective, it's by chance. As it happened, a priest was going down on that road.
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What do you think the priest is going to do? This is an Aaronic descendant. This is a person who does things in the temple, and they would go back and forth.
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They'd serve two weeks in the temple doing the priestly things, and they'd walk back to Jericho where they would live. Back and forth they would go.
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And by the way, if you were an Aaronic descendant and you were a priest, you certainly wouldn't be walking because only the poor walked.
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You would be riding on a donkey. This person has status. This person has power.
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This person's a big shot. This person's a minister. The pastor goes by, and what does he see? He sees some guy laying there.
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He's half dead. And when he saw him, he dropped everything and rushed over, gave him mouth to mouth.
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If you're the lawyer, you're thinking, you know what? Our little unholy trinity, Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees, and an extra member of the trinity, the scribes, we're all together, and the priests.
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He's going to help him, of course. And when he saw him, by the way, the text is, he observed, he noticed, he perceived.
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It wasn't some kind of mirage. It kind of, the sun was there, and he didn't quite see that it was a form of a body.
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He saw him, and like a magnet with another magnet flipped the other way, repels each other, so too he went over as far as he could to the other side of the road.
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The text is, he went on the anti -side of the road, the opposite. As far as he could move over without hitting his donkey to the side of the limestone.
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Wide berth. And he's not doing. He's not loving.
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I'm sure he doesn't even want to look with eye contact to see him. Maybe, you know, he's busy, got to get home.
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Wife wants him to pick up some cream on the way. I mean, he's got to get there. And you know what he's doing? I guarantee
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I know what he's doing. He's quoting the Bible to himself. Leviticus 21.
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Then the Lord said to Moses, Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them,
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No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his people. I better not go. I'm going to be defiled.
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And then it's the cleansings and the rituals. And who wants to be defiled by some corpse? And I don't mean because it's bad bacterially, but just ceremonially unclean.
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Pharisees used to say that if the shadow of a corpse touched you, you were considered unclean. We don't know the motive, but there's no help, no doing, no mercy, no nothing.
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And here's the man who every morning when he gets up, he says the Shema. Great statements of who
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God is and how God is one. What if he had to go home and tell all of his friends, you know,
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I've been serving for two weeks at the temple, and how did everything go? It was great. Did all this with the incense and did this with some of the sacrifices and might even get promoted a little bit.
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Yeah, but I haven't seen you for a while. Well, because I'm ceremonially unclean because I touched a dead body. Whatever the purpose, whatever the motive, he doesn't help.
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And there's a cadence. He came, he saw, he passed on the anti -side. Well, who's going to help this guy?
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Maybe God will send an angel, touched by an angel. Maybe that'll work. Verse 32, oh, and there's help coming.
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By the way, priests are kind of like elders in the New Testament. This next group of people are going to be kind of like the deacons.
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As elders should focus on teaching and shepherding and prayer, and the deacons should focus on helps and making sure everything runs smoothly so the elders can focus on those things.
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So too, this next man is supposed to be a man who helps the priests. He's not in the order of Aaron.
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He's a Levite in the order of Levi, and he's a helper. So here comes the helper. When I used to work in the hospitals and I needed a nurse to get me to do something, sadly,
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I was manipulative back then. I'm probably still unmanipulative. I don't want to be. But I was an unbeliever and I would always ask the nurses the same thing over and over and over if I needed something from them which would help me sell something to the doctors.
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Excuse me, do you think you could help me, please? That's what nurses do.
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How do you describe a nurse's duty with one word? Help. They're there to help the doctors. These Levites were there to help the priests.
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So I wonder what'll happen here. Likewise, a Levite also, verse 32, when he came to the place and saw him, not as if he didn't see him, he rushed over like a good deacon and helped him.
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He does duties of religion. Not as many regulations as a priest. Wouldn't be as bad if he touched a dead body as a priest, but he comes to the same place.
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Maybe he even sees the priest not touch the man, so he better not run up and show up his superior.
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Maybe he even heard the groans and the sighs. Maybe he thought of the verse in Deuteronomy 22,
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You shall not see your countryman's donkey or his ox fallen down on the way and pay no attention to them.
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You shall certainly help them to raise it up. If somebody's donkey's in the ditch, you help. Exodus 23, you say, well, maybe it's an enemy's donkey.
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We shoot it and eat it. Ah, Exodus 23, if you meet your enemy's donkey or ox wandering away, you shall certainly return it to him.
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If you see his donkey of the one who hates you, lying helpless under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him.
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You shall surely release it with him. No mercy, no love, no do.
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Maybe he's saying, you know what, that guy needed to be judged and karma's going to get him and Job's friends have the right theology and I'm going to leave
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God to judge this man. Or maybe if I go over and help, it's an ambush, that's it, it's a trap. Better get going.
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But the cadence is the same. Came, he saw, he left on the anti -opposite side.
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Jewish leadership, two for two. Verse 33, but a lawyer came.
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Finally, somebody to the rescue. A lawyer came. Except you know that's not what the text says.
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Emphatic in the Greek, pushed to the front of the sentence for emphasis. Samaritan, it's the Samaritan who comes.
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This is unexpected development. Let me read you what the Greek says in Luke 10 .33.
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But a Samaritan who was on his journey came upon him and killed him fully dead. No, that wouldn't be true.
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True or false, Jews hated Samaritans. True or false, Samaritans hated
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Jews. Bad blood is an understatement. Did you know in the ninth year
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BC, Samaritans desecrated the Jewish temple so that the Jews could not celebrate Passover?
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And they took human bones and they flung the human bones all over the temple to defile the temple. Jews didn't think too kindly of that.
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This was a half -breed, mixed race of people. And when they wanted to have help from the
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Jews, they kind of said, oh, we're half -brothers and we're kin. This guy though, he saw him, he felt compassion.
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He doesn't know if it's a Jew or Gentile laying there. He doesn't know if it's a Samaritan laying there. It's an image bearer of God. And he goes over there.
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This is a Samaritan. Half -breed of the worst. Do you know there was a rabbinic prayer of the day?
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God, do not remember the Samaritans in the resurrection. And Jesus is telling the lawyer, here comes the
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Samaritan, the enemy. The one that you're not loving. He's going to be the one who loves.
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The priest goes down the road. Nothing. Levi goes down the road. Nothing. The Samaritan comes over to him.
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Sounds like Jesus loving the Samaritan woman at the well. Sounds like when they were after Jesus, remember in John 8 when they were trying to call
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Jesus names? The Jews answered and said to Jesus, did we not rightly say that you're a
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Samaritan and you have a demon? They didn't like Samaritans. Even the disciples in Luke 9, the days were approaching
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Jesus' ascension. He was determined to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead of him, and they went and entered a village of the
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Samaritans to make arrangements for Jesus. But the Samaritans did not receive Jesus because he was traveling toward Jerusalem.
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When Jesus' disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume the
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Samaritans? Yet here we have the Samaritan. And he had compassion.
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He had a pit in his gut. He had an eternal, real pity, sympathy, deep feeling.
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Samaritan does the opposite of the priest. The priest comes, goes, opposite side.
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Levite comes, goes, opposite side. Samaritan comes, sees, comes close to help. He felt pity, and he's going to undo all the robber's actions.
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Verse 34, and he came to him, bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them.
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And he put him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. By the way, let me see your face.
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And if you're a Jew or a Samaritan, that will determine whether I'm going to help you or not. He didn't say, are you a
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Roman? Are you a barbarian? Are you the guy that just tried to rip me off back at home? And everything he's got in his medical kit, he tries to put there.
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Oil, soothing the wounds. Wine would be a good disinfectant. And he's doing.
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That's the point. Remember when Jesus said to the lawyer, do this and live? Here's do. The point of this passage is do.
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D -O, do. It's everywhere. Do. This is all action.
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And he poured oil in and wine. He bound up his wounds. You know what the Greek word for wound there is?
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Very interesting. Trauma. He bound up his trauma. He took him to an inn.
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What do you think the lawyer's thinking right now? The lawyer thinks he's in a new movie. The Incredible Shrinking Lawyer.
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That's what I think. This man's showing mercy to the needy.
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This Samaritan is a neighbor to his friend. This Samaritan realizes the providence of God places this person in front of me.
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And even though I know the Mosaic law, I need to do it. And he just goes overboard.
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On the next day, took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, Take care of him.
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Whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you. He was loving his neighbor as himself.
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He probably went to the inn thinking, They're going to think I beat the guy up because it's a Jewish inn and I'm the
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Samaritan. They're going to go, You're the guy that beat him up. I'll pay it all. Robbers rob,
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Samaritan pays. Robbers leave dying, Samaritan nurses back to health. Robbers abandon,
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Samaritan promises a return. Puts the man on his own donkey. Jesus, verse 36.
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Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands?
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Which one did? Which one does? The best that your system of theology can produce without God isn't going to make it.
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You ever notice, Jesus, when someone realizes they're a sinner, how does Jesus talk to them? Kindly.
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Compassionately. Lovingly. When Jesus meets somebody who thinks they're righteous and they're not, they're self -righteous, what does
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Jesus do to them? It is a verbal gatling gun. Elsewhere in Luke, well, let's just go there because it's only one chapter ahead.
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Look at how Jesus talks to this lawyer. Luke 11, 43. Jesus is going to try to get to the point and, boy, you'd hate to have to have
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Jesus after you. Remember all the woes? Luke 11, 43.
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Woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, for you are like concealed tombs and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.
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Verse 45. One of the lawyers said to him in reply, Teacher, when you say this, you insult us too.
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You insult us lawyers. Jesus said in verse 46, Woe to you lawyers as well, for you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear while you yourselves do not even touch the burdens with one of you.
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Jesus loved this lawyer, and he was telling this lawyer the truth. And the most loving thing you can do when people won't acknowledge their sin is to keep giving them the law, keep giving them the word.
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If you do a study sometime, you'll see the word do or its derivative in verse 25, 28, and 37 two times.
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Do. Do. That's the point. Do. Samaritan did.
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He came up to him. He bound him. Maybe he even took his own clothes and ripped them and then used those for the bandages.
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He anoints. He loathes the man on the mule. He takes him to the inn. He stays the night. Making sure if the care at the inn wasn't good, he would give the care.
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Verse 37, we're wrapping it up, and he said, here's the answer, he, small h, the lawyer said, well,
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Jesus, I don't really want to say Samaritan because they're too far below us.
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Should I just call him the one? The one who showed mercy toward him. The one who showed mercy toward him.
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Which one proved to be a neighbor? The one who showed mercy toward him, Jesus. You can imagine him putting his head down.
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And then Jesus said to him, do. That's exactly what he said.
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Go and do the same. Here's the Greek in verse 37. And he said, the one who does mercy toward him.
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And Jesus went and said, go and do the same. Can't even whisper the name
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Samaritan. But he's got the answer. He heard the message. Can you imagine telling the lawyer, go and act like a
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Samaritan? Can you imagine? WWSD.
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What would Samaritan do? How about that for a necklace? And go and do are both present imperatives.
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Continually. Over and over. You're to love your enemy. You're trying to get out of this question that is supposed to put you to the brink of yourself.
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That you can't do these things without God. That's why they're given to you so you run from yourselves and run to God. And if you do do that, you'll live.
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So Jesus is basically teaching this lesson. And the lesson is, when God providentially places anyone in your path, they then become your neighbor.
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And you are to love them with deeds, and with action, and with sweat, and with toil. Otherwise it's just orthodox and not orthopractic.
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We know the story by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. So instead of wasting our time trying to justify and vindicate ourselves, if we're not
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Christians, we should be crying out for the mercy of God. Christians, when you preach the gospel, do not preach such a watered down gospel that unbelievers can hurtle it.
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That's not the way you see Jesus do it at all. What God wants us to do when we hear the truth is to settle in our minds so we'll do it.
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Now I'll tell you, it's a funny story but it's a sad story because it condemns me. I go to a retail store this week.
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I want to buy a little memory stick for a camera because we're going to go to California and give
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Grandma Evie one of these pictures that's digital, a digital portrait that just keeps flashing new pictures and she can't put a lot of thoughts together but she sees the kids and the grandkids and can recognize them and is very encouraged by that and happy.
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So I needed to get a new memory stick. So I go to this retail store and it's just chaos.
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They don't know what they're doing in there and Kim said, just be patient. I am patient! I'm just kidding.
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Just be patient. By the time you drive to another store, I didn't say that out loud.
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No, I was pretty calm. Kids are here for Iwana. Might as well just wait.
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Somebody's buying some plasma TV with tens. Got a whole wad of dollars there just handing them over.
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So I finally pick the one that I want and I can't get it off the peg. It's locked.
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It's some security control thing. Pilfer deal. Shrinkage control. So I went back and said,
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I found the one that I wanted and could you get it for me? Well, no, it's that guy over there.
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It's his responsibility. A Samaritan dollar. I'm just kidding. I said, okay, so long story short, he finally comes over, he gives it to me,
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I go back and now there's somebody else in line in front of me and if I was a clerk I'd say, well, sorry, you know, this other person
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I was helping over here and they've been waiting now for about 15 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever the time was, longest three weeks of my life and just come over here and then
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I'll pay. But they didn't. They took care of the other person. So I gave him the thing and it was 30 some dollars and he charged it and put it in a little bag and gave him $40.
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He rang up the thing on the register, pushed the wrong buttons and couldn't get the register open. So he's got my $40.
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They're nice, new, crisp $20 bills. I can't figure it out.
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He said, I can't find the no button on my register. So I'm like this. I'm going to try to help him.
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Can't find the no button. He said,
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I'll just pick one. So he just pushed a button randomly. It's locked up tighter than Wells Fargo now.
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So he calls somebody else with a walkie -talkie. This guy comes over. He tries to fix it. He can't fix it either.
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He said, well, I'll call another guy. I said, you know, I have some other shopping to do. It's one of those stores where you have to buy the expensive, you know, high theft stuff first and then you can do the rest of your shopping.
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I said, I got some other stuff to get. Baby powder and all that. I'll just take my money back. It's okay. I thought,
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I was so happy. I was being, you know, godly. Not being, you know, some kind of going into apoplexy because I didn't want to wait.
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Take my money back. So the second guy with the walkie -talkie goes, you can't have your money back. It's my money.
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I don't have the disc. The disc is in the bag right there. And I said, it's my money. He said, you can't have your money back.
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So with lightning cat -like reflexes, I reached across, grabbed my 20 out of his hand and put it in my pocket.
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Snatch and grab. The guy goes, hey, you can't have that.
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I said, it's my money. I don't want to buy that anymore. You have to buy it. Allison Reese was at the store, and I'm just hoping she's not around checking out the pastor.
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What's he doing? So long story short, he said, you come to the front register right now and ring up this other stuff.
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Right now, you come with me. I said, I'm not going anywhere.
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He said, you come up to the front right now. What he thought was that scan disc thing was in my shopping cart, but I didn't have it.
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He wanted me to go up and pay for all that stuff. I said, I'm not going anywhere. I thought, this is going to be great news.
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West Boylston fire -breathing Bible pastor arrested for scan disc for grandma.
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I'm just waiting to walk to the front thinking I'm in big trouble. And once in a while, there's a visitor who comes to this church who's a manager over at this store.
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And I thought, oh, great. Hi, how are you? I thought,
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I'm good. I thought, where's Sheriff Cooley when I need the guy? Here's the moral of the story.
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I didn't like it that this guy was touching my stuff, getting into my property, doing things he ought not to do, being rude, being mean, being totally against customer service.
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He wasn't treating me like I deserve to be treated, like I wanted to be treated, like I ever had any right to be treated.
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And I'll tell you, what was in the farthest, remotest corner of my mind, because it wasn't in my mind, and it was not until today where I thought,
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I better be praying for that man. Why did God let me meet that man? He was providentially placed in my path, and I was concerned about a lousy $40 that mean nothing, when
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I should have did. Let's pray. Lord, we look to you as our great comforter and guide, and we would readily confess that we don't measure up to any of these things.
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We have not for one moment of our lives loved you with all our heart, and we have never loved our neighbor as ourselves, but we've loved ourselves plenty.
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And Lord, we are so thankful that forgiveness is free, because Christ has paid for all those sins, and we stand now as children, no longer with our head in the guillotine, but as children, as joint heirs of Christ.
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We thank you for that. So Lord, help us to take these truths today, and help us to love people who look differently, who act differently, maybe even they're enemies of the gospel, maybe they're
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Muslims, maybe they're abortion doctors, who knows who they might be, but help us to love them as we would love ourselves.