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The Good Samaritan - Are You a Good Neighbor? (Luke 10-25-37)
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The Good Samaritan - Are You a Good Neighbor? (Luke 10-25-37)
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Sunday Message recorded 28 November 2021
by Associate Pastor Joshua Shell
First Baptist Church
1700 Milam
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
http://fbccolumbustx.org/
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Transcript
Introduction and Prayer
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to Growing in Grace with Associate Pastor Josh Shell. This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas. We are praying that God will bless you as you listen to this message. If you would like additional information on worship times and ministries at FBC Columbus, you can find out more at our website, fbccolumbustx.org.
Sermon Introduction and Gospel Imperatives
00:00:33
Speaker
And now take your copy of God's timeless word as Pastor Josh gives today's message.
00:00:45
Speaker
Well, I hope you guys are doing well this morning. It's good to see you all. Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone. I hope you guys had a fantastic day. And if you're visiting with us, we want to welcome you. We're so thankful that you've chosen to worship with us this morning. My name is Josh. I'm the associate pastor and the youth pastor here at First Baptist. And it's a privilege to be able to share the message with you this morning. We're going to be looking at that in Luke chapter 10. So if you have your Bibles, you can go to open up there. So we're going to be spending our time.
00:01:14
Speaker
Victor and I have decided to put a pause on the Galatians series for now until after the Christmas season is over and then we'll pick back up. Let's read this passage together, shall we? You guys can stand with me as we read it. So, I'm going to pray for us real quick and then we'll get into this passage when you pray with me. Lord God, I pray this morning that You will free us of all distractions.
00:01:43
Speaker
Lord, that you will just open our hearts and our minds to the lifestyle and the heart condition that we must live in in this day as followers of you. Lord, you do not call us to receive the good news of the gospel and then go live our own lives.
Exploring the Good Samaritan
00:02:00
Speaker
But Lord, you called us to receive the good news of the gospel and to go and to share it with those around us. You called us to be a good neighbor, to love all those who we encounter.
00:02:13
Speaker
And Lord, I pray that as we go through this, that you'll pierce our hearts to where that we will not only do this for a season, but God, we'll do it all the days of our life. But Lord, just be with us. Speak through me and just do a great work in us this morning. It's in Jesus' name. Amen. Picking up in verse 25, it says this, and behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, teacher,
00:02:41
Speaker
What shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?
00:03:10
Speaker
And Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among the robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
00:03:32
Speaker
But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. 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, take care of him and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.
00:04:00
Speaker
Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And he said, talking about the lawyer, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise." Thank you. You guys may be seated. Talk about a pretty powerful parable here.
00:04:25
Speaker
Jesus is one to be known as the one who likes to confront things. And he is also very good at answering questions with other questions. And we see that here. And this is a very profound parable that really should impact all of us.
00:04:40
Speaker
And so to begin with, what we see here is that this dialogue starts up because there is this lawyer nearby, right? So again, the 72 disciples come back and they're praising Jesus for what they've done. And Jesus is praising the father for what he's done. So you can imagine kind of the crowd that's around him at this time. And like I said, because of the fact that he's been doing miracles on the scene for a while now, these religious leaders know who Jesus is.
00:05:07
Speaker
And they've been trying to attack him. They've been trying to test him in his authority of who he's teaching by and his power. And so this is another opportunity here for this teacher to come who happened to be standing there and to test Jesus.
Journey from Jerusalem to Jericho
00:05:28
Speaker
So this dialogue starts out with this. This lawyer comes up. He says, teacher, what shall I do to inherit the eternal life?
00:05:36
Speaker
Now for some of us, you're like, well, okay, this is a pretty common question, right? If I saw Jesus, I didn't know Jesus, I would probably ask him that same question, like, Jesus, what do you do to inherit eternal life? But you got to remember who just asked this question. The man who just asked this question is a student of the law. He's a lawyer, right? So he's one who studies the law, and this is also known as a scribe.
00:06:01
Speaker
And ascribe is one who copies, and he's a copier and a keeper of the Mosaic law. So this guy knows very well the answer to his question here. This is a rhetorical question that this guy is asking Jesus, and he is waiting to see what Jesus is going to say in response because he is looking to trap him. But look at Jesus' response.
00:06:24
Speaker
To his surprise, Jesus answers with another question, right? He says, well, what is the law? You know the law, what does it say? And the guy's like, oh, okay, I wasn't ready for that. But he says, you know, I do know what the law says, and it says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then to love your neighbor as yourself, right? And Jesus says, yes, you've answered correctly. Well done, wise man.
00:06:52
Speaker
He says, you are truly a lawyer. You are truly ascribed. You know what you're talking about. However, go and do likewise. You see, when Jesus responds to that phrase, go and do likewise, or when he says, you have answered well, yeah, do this and you will live, he knows the heart condition by which this lawyer was asking him the question.
00:07:18
Speaker
Jesus knew that by this lawyer asking this question that he was trying to trap him and that ultimately this lawyer was not living out these two commands. He knew that this lawyer was not loving God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. He thought he was. But if he was truly loving God in that manner, then he would ultimately love his neighbor, which is ultimate. It was something else that he was not doing.
00:07:43
Speaker
And if Jesus sees that and he addresses that by responding with that answer of, you've answered correctly, do this and you shall live. But seeking to justify himself, the lawyer then is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, talk about Jesus. If I'm supposed to go do this, then tell me this, who's my neighbor? As if like there's a distinction among who your neighbor is.
00:08:11
Speaker
as if like there's a different class of people that he's supposed to love versus that he's not supposed to love. And again, Jesus catches on to what this guy is saying and he then comes back with this parable. Instead of, Jesus could have easily been like, hey, everyone around you is your neighbor, you knucklehead, come on, wake up. But no, Jesus says, you know, let me tell you this story. And he goes on to explain this parable.
00:08:39
Speaker
of about a man going from Jerusalem to Jericho.
00:08:44
Speaker
which is about 17 miles. So it's about a 17 mile road from Jerusalem to Jericho. And it's one that was commonly at this time, this road would have been commonly highly populated with thieves and robbers because it was a road that had a lot of turns and a lot of hidden places for these people to get robbed in.
The Compassionate Samaritan
00:09:04
Speaker
So he says, he's going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among the robbers. He stripped him, beat him, and then departed, leaving him half dead.
00:09:14
Speaker
And now, as this happens, there's three people that Jesus introduces into this parable that happen to walk by, right? Who's the first one? The priest, thank you, yes. You guys, I like the interaction here, okay? So it's the priest, right?
00:09:33
Speaker
So Jesus introduces the first character here is the priest. And for those guys who don't know what the role of the priest is, right, the priests were descendants of the line of Aaron, who is the brother of Moses, right? So they were of a pristine bloodline in order to take on a role as the priest in the temple. Okay. And as the role of the priest, they were to perform the different ceremonial offerings in the temple.
00:09:56
Speaker
Right? The different offerings such as the burnt offering or the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering and the peace offering. And so they were the ones who performed these offerings in the temple. And the other fun fact about the priest is this is that they only served two weeks out of the year. Talk about a vacation. They only served two weeks out of the year in the temple.
00:10:24
Speaker
which is pretty incredible. And then, so you can only imagine that if, if a priest only served two weeks, you can only imagine how many other priests there were. There was a lot of priests going out there in that community at that time in order for them to only work two weeks, have two weeks on and have the rest of the year off. Okay. So they only worked two weeks.
00:10:43
Speaker
But the other thing that is really important here to remember when we look at the priest in this parable is that one of the laws that they had to fulfill or that they had to live by is the purification law that is found in Numbers 11, 1911. And essentially what Numbers 1911 says is that if the priests were to encounter a dead body, they were unfit to do their roles in the temple for seven days. So,
00:11:13
Speaker
What we see here is that we have a man who is beaten, who is robbed, stripped from his clothes, and half dead, and now answers the scene, this priest, okay? And so you can almost, you can kind of give sympathy to this guy after knowing what the purification law was of like, hey, I'm coming up upon this body that's on the side of the road and I'm a priest and I can't do my duties if I encounter or touch a dead body for seven days, right? But get this, check out the verbiage here.
00:11:43
Speaker
It says, now by chance a priest was going down that road. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So from what we're seeing here, this priest is not going to the temple. He's coming back from the temple. He's not going to perform his ceremonial duties. He's leaving the temple to come and he's going home. So with that being said, with that in mind, for him to come upon his body and to neglect it,
00:12:14
Speaker
He's only disobeying the law even more. By him touching this body, it would not hinder his ability any longer from doing his two week job of the year. So when Jesus introduced this guy, you can imagine the audience of the time, the lawyer, he was probably thinking like, okay, cool. This guy's probably gonna stop and help him.
00:12:38
Speaker
But what does he do? As soon as he sees the body, he goes to the other side of the road and he continues on his way. And then the next guy that enters the scene is the Levi.
00:12:50
Speaker
who very similarly have the roles in the temple. They are not of the same stature of the priests. So the Levites were the ones who actually serve the priests in the temple. They were the ones who performed the ceremonial worship in the courtyards and things like that. And they took care of the grounds at the temple. That was their role. So in a very similar way, they have a very high status in the temple and in the Jewish community. So when the Levi enters the scene,
00:13:21
Speaker
As he passes by, we see the same kind of verb. It says, likewise a Levi, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. So again, it sounds like this Levi is leaving the temple and he is going home after fulfilling his duties.
00:13:38
Speaker
And in a very similar way, he sees the man on the ground, except this is very interesting. When you read this, it says, when he came to the place and saw him, it's almost as if like this Levi, not only just walked by him, but he like stopped. He stopped and looked at this guy and assessed the situation. He says, yeah, he looks dead. I'm not gonna mess with him. And he continues on his way.
00:14:08
Speaker
So not only does he just pass by, but he engages with this guy and then leaves him stranded. So this is a very profound picture that Jesus is painting here of these Jewish leaders at this time. This would have really offended not only the lawyer, but any of the other Jews in the audience about the roles of the priests and the Levites in the temple. But this is where they failed. Both men,
00:14:37
Speaker
for us demonstrated that it doesn't matter how religious you are or what kind of religious work you do, it doesn't make you any more of a true servant of God. Does that make sense? So it doesn't matter how many good things you do, it doesn't matter what you do within the church, it doesn't matter what you do as far as fulfilling the commands of scripture. If you're not loving people well, which is one of the greatest commandments,
00:15:07
Speaker
you are not being a true servant of God. And the reality is that if either one of these men would have stopped and helped this guy, they would not have broken the law, but they would have actually fulfilled the law of what God has required of them. Because the Jews at this time, it was required for them to love their neighbors.
00:15:29
Speaker
And we see this in the basic tenets of the Mosaic Law, right? So in Micah 6.8, we see this. And in Micah 6.8 it says, he has told you, oh man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? And it goes on in Leviticus 19, verse 34, and it says this as well, it says, you shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you.
00:15:58
Speaker
for you are strangers in the land of Egypt. So what we see here in these two passages of Micah 6.8 and Leviticus 19.34 is that the Jews were required to show charity and grace to strangers and to their enemies no matter what.
Religious Figures' Failure
00:16:15
Speaker
But yet both of these men failed to do that.
00:16:17
Speaker
Both these men in their own mind and heart thought that it was better for them to leave that man there because of trying to fulfill their roles in the temple than to fulfill the laws in which God has placed on their heart by loving their neighbor well. How many of us do that?
00:16:41
Speaker
Again, it's easy for us to go into a season of thanksgiving and being thankful for the things that we have. And it's easy to go into Christmas and get excited about giving gifts to our families and to our friends. But what about those who are hurting? What about those who are lost? What about those who are broken? Those who are on the side of the road that we pass by and we neglect?
00:17:05
Speaker
God doesn't call us just to love our family and our friends and those in our close community. God calls us to go and love everyone. After all, that's the whole reason of why Jesus came into this earth, so that he could come and die for all sins, for all people, not just for the Jews, not just for the Gentiles, not just for the people who live in Columbus, but for all people.
00:17:31
Speaker
But yet, there's so many times where we act just like the priests and the Levites. Whether it's we're too good to stop and help, or we're too busy, or we feel like somebody else is gonna come along behind us and do it for us. But that's not what Jesus commands of us here. And he's gonna demonstrate that for us in this next character that's fixing to be introduced in the parable. And it's an unlikely character.
00:18:00
Speaker
It's not a character that the Jewish audience was expecting. So at this point in the parable, the audience was expecting Jesus said, all right, so first you had the priest, then you had the Levite, then comes the Jew. That's what they were expecting. Oh yeah, here comes the Jew. He's going to come in. He's going to save the day. But what does Jesus do? He says, no, no, no, no. First there was a priest, then there was a Levite. Now there's a Samaritan. Now some of you are like, well, what's the big deal about the Samaritan?
00:18:29
Speaker
Guys, I don't know how to put into words the hatred that was actually there between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews despised wholeheartedly the Samaritans. This was the least likely character that they were expecting Jesus to put into this parable. And so when he said that word Samaritan, you could only imagine that you heard in the crowd, he said that word. How dare he say that word? But he did.
00:18:59
Speaker
And he says, but a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He had compassion. This is absolutely incredible.
00:19:16
Speaker
And just another fun fact, if you guys actually go back to chapter nine, two of Jesus' very own disciples, just to kind of paint a picture of how much they hated the Samaritans, two of the disciples, after the Samaritans rejected Jesus from coming into their village, what do they do? This is James and John, by the way, their nicknames are Sons of Thunder. They were like, Jesus, can we cast out fire from heaven on them? They rejected you. We're gonna teach them a lesson.
00:19:45
Speaker
And Jesus looks at him and says, well, what are y'all doing? He's like, I didn't come to destroy people. I came to save people. I came to love people. You got to get over this, right? But to help give us an understanding of who the Samaritans are, I want to read this to you from Dr. David Jeremiah.
00:20:03
Speaker
about how the Samaritans came about. In 1722 BC, Assyria sent the defeated northern kingdom of Israel into exile. And immediately after going into exile, they deported 20,000 Hebrews from the land of Israel.
Overcoming Societal Divides
00:20:21
Speaker
The conquering Assyrians then brought in foreigners to replace those 20,000 Hebrews, which led into intermarriage of the Jews into these so-called Gentiles. So these Jews and these Assyrians that they brought in. So there was this intermarriage there, and as a result of this,
00:20:41
Speaker
and the Samaritans, these half-blooded Jews. So as a result of this, the Jews despise the Samaritans from that point on. And as a result, the Samaritans would then disassociate themselves from the full-blooded Jews, and they would actually create their own religion, and they would actually create their own temple that rivaled the temple in Jerusalem, which only made that animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans even greater.
00:21:04
Speaker
But so all I had to say here, for Jesus to bring the Samaritan into this parable was a very profound moment, okay? So again, he says as the Samaritan comes into the scene, he came to where he was and when he saw him, he had great compassion. And he went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. And to set him on his own animal brought him to an inn and took care of him. Listen, I just wanna point out a few key things of how Jesus characterizes this Samaritan.
00:21:35
Speaker
and how we are to emulate these same characteristics and how we are to be this same kind of neighbor as a Samaritan was to this man who was most likely a Jew. So the first thing we see here though in verse 33 is that he had great compassion.
00:21:51
Speaker
When he saw him, he looked at him and he said, it is not okay for this man to be here. I need to stop and help this man, regardless of socioeconomic background, regardless of religion, regardless of if he's the same race as me. I need to stop and help this man. Imagine if you were walking through downtown Houston and there was a man on the side of the road who needed your help. What would you do? I hope and pray that your first instinct is to stop and to help him.
00:22:21
Speaker
Because if you walk past somebody who is in need of your help, you're just as guilty as the one who committed the crime against that man.
00:22:30
Speaker
So the Samaritan had great compassion and he stopped. And then he would go on to verse 34 here and he would provide his own aid. He went to him and bound up his wounds and pouring on his own oil and his own wine to dress the wounds. So he provided his own aid. And then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
00:22:54
Speaker
So he provided transportation on his own donkey. So he decided that I'm gonna put this man on my donkey and I'm gonna walk the 17 miles to Jericho. That's how much he regarded himself less and regarded that injured man more. How many of you guys would be willing to do that? Some of you all struggle walking a mile.
00:23:18
Speaker
I know I do, so I'm not out there with you. But this guy gave up his own transportation and then walked the 17-mile journey to Jericho. And then going on to that last part of verse 34, he brought him to an inn and then he took care of him. So he gave up his own time for this man. We don't know the schedule of this Samaritan. We don't know what he was doing or where he was going.
00:23:44
Speaker
the whole purpose of his journey. But regardless of his purpose, he stopped, took him to the end, and he took care of him. He gave up his own time for this man. That's powerful. And then in verse 35, he generously gave out of his own finances, and he said the next day he took out two denarii, which was two days worth of wages, and gave them to the innkeeper. So he paid for this man's lodging,
00:24:13
Speaker
This is something that for us as neighbors, as for us as believers in Jesus, how often do we neglect to do these same characteristics, these same things in which we're seeing the Samaritan doing? So what we see here though is that Jesus takes a despised enemy, a Samaritan, and turns him into a selfless, compassionate, loving hero.
00:24:37
Speaker
So you can only imagine the coals that are being poured onto the head of the Jews at this time in the audience. They're like Jesus, okay, first off, you're already not liked among the Jewish community in the religious circles because of the power in which you're teaching through, but now you're telling us that the Samaritans are better than us, which is not the message in which Jesus is trying to say, but rather he was addressing the heart condition of the Jews at this time.
Call to Daily Compassion
00:25:07
Speaker
The Samaritan puts on display for us what true neighbor love is. And that's this, it's likeness over difference and others over self. Likeness over difference and others over self. What I mean by likeness over difference is this, is that the likeness, our likeness as God's creation, as being made in the image of God is way more important than any other socio-economical racial background that may divide us.
00:25:37
Speaker
Because of the fact that we are all made in the image of God, we should have the first and foremost desire to love one another and to serve one another and have compassion on one another, as Christ has shown great love and compassion towards us. And what I mean by others over self is that we must truly live a selfless life.
00:26:01
Speaker
It doesn't matter what you're doing in that moment, the life of that human that you encounter is far greater than anything that you're doing in that moment because he is a child or he or she is a child of God. So we need to make sure that our eyes and our hearts are open to the opportunities.
00:26:22
Speaker
And again, you can only imagine, as Jesus wrapped up this parable, what the audience was thinking as he addressed them, right? So verse 36 says, which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And the lawyer said, he who showed him mercy.
00:26:43
Speaker
he who showed him mercy. So you can only imagine how painful that was for him to say that, because he knew that Jesus was calling him out for his heart condition, for the lack of love and compassion which he was having for other Jews, and then also for his enemies. And so Jesus is addressing that heart condition in that moment for him. And he says, you go and do likewise. Go and be like the Samaritan.
00:27:15
Speaker
Church, now more than ever, we need to come together and we need to encourage one another, we need to support one another, we need to love one another. And this is not just a season, this is not just Thanksgiving and Christmas, but rather this is a lifelong journey that we all need to be a part of together as the body of Christ. There are a lot of hurting and broken people in this world who need the love of Jesus.
00:27:40
Speaker
They're right in front of us. We literally pass by them every single day. So as we transition from Thanksgiving into Christmas, and we go from a season of being thankful to a season of giving, I pray that we'll have that on the foremost front part of our minds. That we'll have this gift that Jesus has given us that we need to give to others. So will you guys pray with me?
00:28:12
Speaker
Lord God, we just thank you so much for just the way that you first loved us and the way that you sent your son Jesus to die for us on the cross. But more importantly, you sent him as an example for us to follow. For anyone who is in Christ, Lord, we are a new creation. The oldest passed away and the new has come and Jesus commands of us to take up our crosses and to follow him daily.
00:28:36
Speaker
And I would pray, God, that as believers in Jesus, that's exactly what we do, what we will do. But Lord, will you please just have your way among us, pierce our hearts, and allow us just to truly humbly fall before you. And we would pray all this in the name of Jesus, amen.