all your heart, with all your
soul, with all your strength, and he adds, 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? Jesus
replied, a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell
among 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 pass by on the other side.
So likewise a Levite when he came to the place saw him pass
by on the other side. 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,
and set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and
took care of him. And the next day he took two denarii, gave
it to the innkeeper saying, take care of him and whatever more
you spend, I will repay you when I return. Which of these three
do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the
robbers? The lawyer said, the one who showed him mercy. And
Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. There's a lot of
irony here in this conversation, specifically that this man was
not honest. He was not integrable when he
questioned Jesus. We see that. It says there very
clearly he attempted to, what, catch him, to test him, to find
error in him, to publicly shame him. Now this is a motif that
we see constantly with self-righteous people. People who have this
mindset of superiority, theologically, socially, economically, they
always like to see someone else be put down. And it's nothing
new. I mean, it's been happening since
the very beginning of time. And we see that often through
the gospel narratives where people tried to put Jesus to the test.
Because if they could discredit him, if they could get him to
blaspheme, if they could get him to do something that would
be out of context of the law or in a spiritual sense, terrible,
then they'd have a foothold to make accusations stick. The point of this is not to teach
us about the lawyer, And the point of this is not to teach
us about the Samaritan, the point of this is not to teach us about
the Levites and the priests and all this other kind of stuff,
though we learned some of that last week. The point of this
parable is to teach us about Christ. And then also to teach us something
about ourselves. Is that at any given time, we can be like the
lawyer, we can be like the Levite, we can be like the priest, and
we can be like the Samaritan. We could also be like the man
laying half dead on the ground. We could be a victim of others.
And then there is a practical thing that I'll talk about this
morning. There's a very practical instruction. Jesus says, go and do likewise. So just because there's rich
theological overtones here and then there's extreme depth when
it comes to understanding, you know, Christ. It doesn't mean
that there's not a simple practical obligation. Jesus redefines in
this message who our neighbor is. Who our neighbor is. And so that's where we'll sort
of pick up today. I said there was, I don't know how many parts
there was. Let's say one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
six, seven, seven plus some others. I got through the first one last
week. So we're going to jump through these next six or so
pretty quickly this morning. but defining our true neighbor.
Now, some of you don't have an experience that I'm going to
explain. Some of you don't have any bearing
to say, okay, I know what you're talking about. But let's just
say that some of us have been in a situation in our Christian
culture, or a church, or with a family member, or with a friend,
or a neighbor, or a coworker, or whatever, where There has
been this isolating mindset. We don't want to be around anybody
that's not like us, don't dress like us, don't talk like us,
doesn't smell like us, doesn't eat like us, doesn't do like
us. And I've seen, I mean, being a pastor for 25 full 12 months,
it's a long time. That's a long time. I was thinking
about that the other day. I have talked to tens of thousands of
individuals face-to-face about scripture. That's not nothing. And I'm thinking about all the
things that I've experienced And it is different because some
people who aren't in the pastorate don't get this experience. So
even for me, my experience is just so far different than everybody
else's. Because I may say things like,
I can't believe that. Man, I've had that happen 10 times or 12
times. I know 100 people like that. But you may not. It doesn't
matter if you know one or 100. There's always somebody that's
gonna come into our lives that try to segregate us or separate
us from something or someone. I mean, we do it, even in not
a spiritual sense. Because we feel like, well, if it's not
spiritual things, it's political things. If it's not political
things, it's economics. Or maybe it's education. You know, for Robin and I, it
wasn't, there was no spiritual sense in which we chose to home
educate, none whatsoever. It had nothing to do with our
faith. It had everything to do with other convictions. That
our faith informed, but it was other convictions. Now for some
other people, oh no, it's all about what we believe according
to X. That's great. But so, in the homeschool movement,
if you can call it that, in the homeschool community, it's very
easy for everybody just to think, oh, we're all alike. We're not. The same thing is true in church.
Same thing is true in community. I mean, just because I'm a white
man doesn't mean that I believe, act, think, and want every other
thing that every other white man wants. But yet, you see a
dude at Tractor Supply, and he's like, how's it going, what you
think? And they will, you've been there, they will impose
whatever they're thinking on you, ain't that right, you see? And I'm like, no, that ain't
right. I don't believe that way, I don't agree with that. And
so there's always some place in the world that we live in
where somebody's going to try to isolate us from something
else or make us sort of like them. And for some strange reason,
when it comes to spiritual things, it's almost a disease. It's almost
a disease. I remember the first time someone
came up to me and talked to me about the idea of buying property
as a church, like hundreds and hundreds of acres, and building
houses inside a gate and a wall for the church to live in. And
I mean, like investment property, build like a suburb? No, no, like a commune. I'm like,
hey, buddy, back up for a second. You on jokes right now? No, I'm
not joking. And to sit down and talk to this fella, who at the
time was in his late 70s, and explain to him that that not
only was completely unbiblical and sinful, it was weird. It was weird. Now, the sentiment
I get, man, I'd love to just be away from all the knuckleheads.
The problem is, when you put a wall around people, you gonna
wall in some knuckleheads. So I'd rather just be free to
live where I wanna live. That's why I've never lived in a pastoral.
I've never lived in church-owned property. Never would, never
would. I don't care how, I mean, I'd
rather live in a tent before I live in somebody else's house
tell me where I gotta be and what I can't. I got a friend
right now who can't, the church is right next to the house. He
can't escape. He can't do anything. Why were
you cutting the grass on Sunday morning? I mean, you know, cause
it was a lot. I mean, you can't, you can't. You can't isolate like that.
It's not biblical. As a matter of fact, the Bible
says that we're in the world, but we're not of it. The scripture gives
us all sorts of things. But there's this mindset that when it comes
to certain things that we aren't responsible for loving other
people the same. And Jesus eradicates that right
now. Who is my neighbor? He answers,
I give you the, the one who has compassion is the true neighbor. And here's the answer. Who is
the neighbor? Anyone in need that we can help. Let me say
that again. Any single human being that's
alive, that is in need, that we can help, is our neighbor.
No matter if they're a cult, a crackhead, or a character. It doesn't matter. Now there
is something weird about not wanting to love someone, or different
than that, redefining what love is. Because you've probably heard
this, well here's what love really is. Love is keeping it real and
speaking the truth in love. And if I have to shake you down
and destroy you to show you that you're wrong, or that you shouldn't
be living over here, or that I'm gonna put you to the test.
That's not love, okay? It's not love. Nowhere in the
New Testament is the church given that as an instruction. It's
not love. And so what this lawyer did to test Jesus was not love.
But yet in his heart, he thought, I'm doing what is right because
this man is violating every known absolute that we have in my faith
and in my community. And as a man with a voice, I'm
going to expose him. And Jesus, being the God of heaven,
answered in such a way that it's infallible. Here's a story about
a man who was robbed and left for dead. And we saw last week
a Levite and a priest come by and go the other way, leaving
this man to die. But yet they are the epitome
of compassion. Levites, they're the ones through
whom the priesthood live. Tribe of Levi had no property,
had nothing. They are the priests. The priests
are the one who mediate between God and man, who do the sacrifices,
who pray, who offer offerings. They're supposed to be the one
who understands the mercy seat and establishes a presence before
God and man. But yet, no compassion there.
I mean, this is very pointed teaching. See, Jesus didn't have
to explain himself. These people got it. These people
got it. And then remember the Samaritan.
The Samaritan was the person who absolutely was unclean, unworthy,
and disgusting. Someone who could not be around
you. Someone who could not be in your
presence. Someone that if you were a spiritually mature person,
if you were caught looking, talking, or associating with a Samaritan,
you would lose everything. It wasn't like, oh, people look
bad about you. You would lose your livelihood. You would lose
your home. You would lose your family. You
would be discarded from society and have to live in the wilderness
as a homeless person. Now see, I want you to get that.
It's severe when we think of a Samaritan coming into the presence
of an Israelite. That's why when Jesus talks to
the woman from Sychar, it blows the disciples' minds. Number
one, that he would dare speak publicly to a woman. Two, offer
her something to drink out of his own pitcher. And three, that
she was a Samaritan. I mean, these were horribly hated
people. And so the Samaritan became the
epitome, listen to this, of Christ. The very one that was hated.
So you sort of see the Christological principles that we'll see here.
But who is the neighbor? Jesus asked the question, which
of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who
fell among the robbers? Because it's not just about who
is my neighbor, who am I also a neighbor to? The one who I
have compassion for. So neighbor is not about social
construct. Neighbor is not about ethnic
construction. Being a neighbor is not about
religious identity. Being a neighbor is about actions
of mercy and compassion. So see, that's why Jesus says,
go and do likewise. Because it's not just a message
of sovereign grace in a picture of Christ. It is a commandment
of living as such. And we've got to, as a culture,
stop trying to pit these two things against each other. We
are told the truth of Christ, and we are told to live as Christ.
And these are both and, always, at the same time, constantly.
And there is no feeling of love. There is only ever a being of
love, a doing of love, okay? Love is always and ever, ever
will only be something we do for someone else. And it is not
about correcting their doctrine, correcting their social constructs,
correcting their politics. That's not love. It's about compassion
and serving. And we don't know who this victim
was, but I'll tell you this, the victim looks a lot like us
sometimes. And the only person who came
to be a neighbor was the one who absolutely couldn't be a
neighbor to anybody else in the presence of God according to
culture, according to theology. So beyond these social constructs,
Jesus in all senses is speaking in a very revolutionary way.
He's speaking in a place that without having to get right down
and put his finger in the face of these people, he spoke against
this strict social and religious boundary. And beloved, I think
we as Christians need to get that for a minute. I am guilty
of having this type of bigotry. And I chose that word on purpose
because I've been trying to water it down. No, I'm just saying
I'm trying to be careful. No, it's not careful. It's fear-based
bigotry. No matter what it was fueled
by, there have been times in my life where I felt, well, if
I befriend X, and they're in this type of theology, or they're
in this type of cult, or they're in this type of thing, then something's
gonna happen to me. No, you know what? Nothing can
separate us from the love of God. Nothing can undermine the
gospel of grace. Nothing can refute the word of
God, and we need to be more involved about finding intersectionality
with the world we live in, in a way that God can use us to
preach the truth as we have compassion, as we have empathy. I'll never
forget the time I was told by a student, well, so-and-so said
they don't want you here anymore at this particular institution
because you're not a Republican. And that's the truth, I'm not
a Republican. I haven't been a Republican in a very long time.
A long time. Sometimes people go, how are
you a Christian? Don't get me started. You see? But the very fact that that could
be something that could thwart someone's spiritual compassion,
because of a particular political party or not a political party. In that sense, it was not a political
party. And you'd be shocked looking
around the room. There's no such thing as God's politics. You see. But I'll never forget
how hard that was to digest, to think to myself. Number one,
how did they know that? And number two, what difference
does it make? You see? And some people that
will listen to this will go, I knew something was weird about
him. You ain't seen weird yet. You ain't seen weird yet. If
you think it's weird, if you think I'm weird now, wait. Just wait. And I've seen people in California
where we would be doing community ministry amongst multi-faiths,
different types of faiths, different types of, I mean, Eastern mystics. Why? Because there were hungry
people that needed to be fed. It didn't matter if these people
knew Christ or knew some weird element in the sky. If you had
compassion to feed hungry people and I wanted to help, then I'm
going to help you. And that is something that as
Christ followers, we need to get really straight. And I think
this teaching helps us see that. It doesn't mean we agree with
their doctrine. That's silly. I don't agree with
half of what I think about other people say. But it doesn't matter. Why? Because the first thing
is, is that when we come to a particular conclusion, it's years of transportation
in our thinking, right? We've been on that highway for
a long, long time, riding back and to on that interstate, going
through all these exits, and we've come out to a particular
location, and here we are. Someone just hearing the outcome
is not gonna be able to follow us there because they haven't
taken the journey. So we're not going to be able
just to say, well, this is the way I think and you should think
that way too. No, you have to go through the
journey. You may say you believe in the
gospel of Christ. You may say you trust in the
sovereignty of God, but the way you act, think and worry probably
could prove otherwise. And it would be very easy for
me to stand up here and get all preachy and go, you didn't believe,
you know, and what does that do? Telling you what you ought
to do is not going to carry you to where you ought to be. First, you have to go through
the journey. So some of you are going to have to go through the
journey starting today about the people in your life that
you can't keep from. Now, keep in mind, there are
some people who do destructive things that we need to isolate
ourselves from. But we don't need to make them
destructive when they're not. And I think it says a lot sometimes when we look in our
lives and we say, okay, how many unbelieving people do I love
and take care of? How many unbelieving people am
I involved with on a day-to-day basis? And the question, when it's answered,
is not an indictment. It's just a reality. It just
is. It's not good or bad. It just is. Just answer the question.
Say, okay, this is where I am. Who is my neighbor? I got neighbors. Y'all got neighbors, physical
neighbors. It's hard to get along with them when they're not in
the faith. But I'm finding it's harder to
get along with people in the faith. Have you ever felt that way?
And when I'm getting into some homes lately and I'm talking
and somebody says, well, I just don't know if I believe the gospel,
I almost take a sigh of relief. Oh, praise God. I won't have
to fight with this person. I'll just share it and move on.
Versus someone who begins to pull out the King James and tell
me that the Bible that I have in my backpack is not the word
of God. I'm going to borrow your 1611
one day and pull it out. How about this one? I mean, come on, you know, that's
okay. I'm not going to isolate myself
from those people, but I'm also not going to work myself to a
frenzy to try to fix that nonsense. I'm not going to do it. A Samaritan's actions illustrate
that anyone in need, regardless, regardless of what they believe,
regardless of where they are, regardless of what they're involved
with, is our neighbor. Scripture says to love your neighbor
as yourself. The lawyer quoted it. Because here's something
that we know. We know this, beloved. To love
the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength. Soul. Here in Luke, it adds the fourth
thing, mind. And then to love your neighbor
as yourself. Jesus, when he's put to the test
one time, they ask him, what's the greatest of all the laws
of the prophets? And he says, the greatest is this, but of
equal importance is to love your neighbor as yourself. So here's
the reality. The only way, and John in his
first epistle undergirds this, Paul also in his letter to the
Corinthians, undergirds this in such a way that it's, It's
non-debatable. I mean, you can argue it for
whichever way you wanna come, but it's undebatable in that
the only way you actually literally love God is to love your neighbor
as you love yourself. I'm gonna say that again. The
only literal way that you can ever love God is to love your
neighbor as you love yourself. We teach children, I mean, even
in secular context, Humanism teaches this secular humanism
Satanism teaches this to children to treat others as you want to
be treated There's an intersectionality
there and There's a dichotomy. There's a there's a divorce between
the creation of I mean from the context of of Christianity and
Its application that's living out and all of these other worldviews
Because Christianity, by and large, is not known for compassion,
love, and patience. It's known for hard-headedness
and hatred. Well, yeah, we love you, that's
why we gotta be hateful. That's just silly. That's silly. And the problem comes, I think,
We have become so isolated in our, number one, not reading
the Bible. We're not reading the Bible.
We're just using the Bible to constantly fuel our little pets,
our little pet peeves and our little pet projects and our little
pet ideals. We're not literally reading the Bible in paragraph
form. as a culture. We're just using
the Bible to prove what we think we ought to be doing. It's just
such a silly, silly, silly notion. We get to the place where we're
doing so much Because we're not engaged in the absorption of
God's Word, the Spirit of God is not softening our hearts.
We don't have compassion. We're not being led by the Spirit.
We're just discouraged and we're depressed. We're scared. We're isolated. We're discontent. I mean, think about it. But yet when we open the scripture
and we just absorb it, we just eat it, we just meditate on it.
God does a supernatural work in us. The same thing with this
here. We don't have to parse this out
to some, I mean, there's a lot of linguistic things I could
talk about. It's not necessary. It's not necessary. I like it,
but it's not necessary. What's necessary is for us to
see. that we need to reevaluate who
our neighbors are. And I think as a church, for
me, I've been doing that for a little over a year. And for
us, I think we're gonna start focusing on some of that as well. I mean, I remember some years
ago, some of you remember, we'd have these harvest festival type
things, we'd have these community things, and some of us called
stream flack because we dared go That's nonsense. Okay. Well, 3,000 people are going
to stand outside your building. I'm not going. I'm going. And during those times, you know,
I was constantly called on. I was constantly saw. I was constantly
asked, hey, can you come do this prayer thing over here? Absolutely.
You know why that doesn't happen anymore? Isolation. And when you separate yourself
from the world that God's called you to minister to, don't cry
or don't be surprised when there's nobody calling on you. Out of
sight, out of mind. We can't be out of sight, out
of mind as Christians, and we cannot be a cult in and of ourselves
because of theological distinctions. And we will work through these
things as a people to learn who our neighbor is. And the reality
of this, Christ is the true neighbor. The Samaritan in Christ, here's
Christ who is hated like the Samaritan, and he goes and he
finds the one in need, finds the ones no one else is able
to help, and he helps them. The gospel of grace and neighborly
love. This emphasizes that Christ's
sacrificial love on the cross is the ultimate example of neighborly
love. And we ought to likewise love
selflessly. There's also something here we
need to think about in the context of the law versus grace. I mean,
think about the law says, don't associate with these people.
Don't talk to these people. Don't be around these people.
But yet the very one who you hate is the very one who is the
true neighbor. I remember saying this, I don't
even know when it was, it was sometime in the last three or
four years, I said it in a sermon and someone, it turned them upside
down on their head on social media. But I said that the cults
often love better than the church. How dare you say that? And then
I received that rebuke, okay, maybe I was wrong. You know what,
I retract that rebuke, I wasn't wrong. And I don't care. I know what
I'm talking about because I see it. And the ugliness in which
I was approached from that statement showed this man had no love in
him. Therefore, I don't even have to call him a brother. I
don't care what theology he believes. He doesn't love me. You're not
my brother. But you can be my neighbor. See, there's a difference. There's a difference. The priest and the Levite represent
adherence to the law, this purity and this ritualistic separation,
so-called holiness. But it's limiting. It's exclusive. But Samaritan's actions point
to an inclusivity, unbounded by grace, as offered by Christ. I'm going to say something right
now that's going to, as a soundbite, is going to really Russell's and Jimmy's. And that is that the gospel of
free and sovereign grace, in a sense, has a universal elemental
application. In that, Christians can love
and should love everybody because of the love of God for them.
There we go. There we go. So we ought to be a true neighbor.
We ought to live out the gospel. We can practice unconditional
neighborly love, not just proselytizing, not just evangelizing. I don't
even want to get started. I might need to preach a little
series or two on my thoughts on evangelism. Maybe I'll do
that on a YouTube video or something. Save the bullpen. But we need compassion. We need
service. and let God's evangelism come
through that. So let's expand this. Let's expand
some application of this teaching. Proverbs 3, 27, 28 says, do not
withhold good from those to whom it's due when it is in your power
to do it. Do not say to your neighbor,
go and come again tomorrow. I will give it when you have
it with you. See, I believe modern society
in the context of evangelical life reflects the attitudes of
the priests and the Levite. Sometimes we want to avoid involvement
because it goes, it's not my cause. Or we can even prove, we can
show, okay, no, Jesus didn't come down here. He didn't come
to earth. He did not establish his ministry
in the context of meeting all the needs of all the marginalized.
However, he destroyed the concept and the mindset of permitting
that type of stuff as believers. His mission was to save us. And his message is clear. Because we've received his grace,
we ought to be gracious to others. Always. Always. Tangible actions of kindness. This actionable compassion. Every
single day. We need to think about how can
we do that? Are there things in our lives
that we have neighbors that we're just not seeing? And it doesn't
mean we've got to solve the problem. Beloved, let me tell you something.
You can't solve the problems. You can't change people. But
you can pay attention when there's someone who needs something to
eat. Someone who needs a kind word. Someone who needs prayer.
Someone who needs encouragement. Someone who needs, like I got
a person right now, like, Patrick, can you find me a set of boots
and a blanket? I'm like, why is that so difficult? I sit there thinking, who can
I call? Let's organize the masses, get a set of boots. Just go buy
a pair of boots. I think if we need to, we need
to make stuff like that no more, you know? I mean, could you imagine
your biggest need and say, what do you need? Anything you need.
I need a blanket and some boots. Let's get some blankets. Let's
get some boots. Because when we serve like that,
when we know who our neighbors are, when we are doing what we
can, when we're engaged, we literally highlight and mirror Christ. We mirror Christ. We are called
to do this. They are practical demonstrations
of the gospel. 1 John, it's replete with this.
If you have the world's goods and your brother is in need and
you don't give to them, the love of God isn't in you. What does
that mean? That you don't grasp the love of Christ. Because you
have nothing to show and nothing to give, you're not loving others,
therefore the love of God has not manifested itself in you
in such a way that it's beginning to grow out of you. John doesn't
say you're unregenerate, John just says you're worthless. Paul says the same thing in 1
Corinthians 13. All these uber spiritually mature
people with all these great gifts, these manifestations of spiritual
things, he goes, y'all are garbage. To quote one of our brothers
who loves to say that, I'm just trash. Y'all are like a noisy
clanging cymbal or gong. Now, let's put that in contemporary
American tradition. A toddler with a lid and a spoon
in the kitchen. I should have brought one as
an object lesson. Everybody's shaking their head
no, so you get it. Okay, you get the point. There's
no object lesson needed. I'll do it next week But I mean
now let me imagine trying to serve or trying to be spiritual
or trying to be I don't know, mature, and everything we do
is just like smash, bang, smash, bang, smash, bang, and nobody
can stand to be around us, and nothing's working, and everybody's
running for the hills, throwing themselves off of short porches
and stuff. If I break a leg, at least I'll go to the hospital.
That's what it means to have no love. I think we need to deal with
the theological implications of this. We cannot earn our salvation
through good deeds. We cannot prove it through good deeds,
but we can display it through good deeds. That's what James
says. Be not just hearers, but be doers.
For faith without productivity is dead. It's worthless. That's what he says. It's worthless.
It's dead. It's like a dead horse. It doesn't
do anything but rot. Your knowledge of the truth is
worthless if you're not working through it. Worthless! And it's not what the evangelical
culture has said is worth something. It's what the Bible has said.
Just be available as you can be. Beloved, I've learned I can't
be as available as I've always tried to be. I can't solve my
own problems, much less yours and everybody else's and the
world's and the climate, the cost of gas, can't solve it. We need to transform our faith
into action. Why? Well, because I believe
that there's a necessity in understanding the greater good in the context
of the gospel. Like I said a minute ago, there
is a universal sense in which the gospel is beneficial for
the whole world, even the reprobate, because God's people can love
others in kind. There's a greater good. Each act of compassion contributes
to a larger narrative of love and redemption. Our kindness and our mercy, even
though they may be small and invisible, they are not isolated
events. They are not isolated events,
but they are part of God's grand design, bringing healing and
restoration to a broken world. And yes, we know that ultimately
only those who come to know Christ, only those who are saved by sovereign
grace, only those who are made alive by the Spirit, only those
who are gifted faith are counted in that number. But this is not
for us to know, nor is it for us to count or to quantify. It is just for us to live according
to the promises of God that we might live out His grace with
everyone. With everyone. And as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless.
In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through
Christ Jesus according to the purpose of his will. God has
purpose to save us and we remain in this world that we might be
fruitful in it. I mean, look at the life of Jesus
for a minute. I mean, look at the people he made angry and
how. He incensed the Pharisees and
the Sadducees. They hated him. Why? Because
he lived in a manner and amongst people who were absolutely debauch. They were godless, horrible people. Zacchaeus, that's political suicide to go
to Zacchaeus' house. It's commercial suicide. It's
business suicide. It's social suicide. But grace is not bound by social
norms. And get this, grace is not bound by human judgment. No matter what people think,
it doesn't make them right. The word of the Lord is right.
The Lord of the word is right as well. So our acts of compassion, our
kindness, our understanding the plurality of who our neighbor
is, is a response to the grace we've received through Christ. I mean, Micah 6.8, we don't hear
from that text much. He has told you, O 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? We need to live justly, we need
to love mercy, and we need to walk humbly. Because that's what we've received. Jesus, the ultimate good Samaritan. When we think about Paul's writing
to the Church of Philippi, we see Christ's humility. We go
to Philippians chapter 2, and it tells us all about Christ,
who was God, but did not take equality with God, something
to be grasped, but made himself nothing, obedient unto death,
even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him, highly exalted him. And he put
Christ above all things, and that every tongue on heaven and
earth and under the earth, every tongue would confess that Jesus
is Lord. I mean, Christ fulfills this parable. Because what the good Samaritan
did, as a rejected, hated one, is what Christ ultimately did. As a rejected, hated one. Nothing's
changed. In every little subsection of
some kind of Christian faith, there's always gonna be your
Pharisees and your Sadducees. The question is, am I one? Or
are you one? And I hope not, but as we see
it, then we go, whew, I gotta, I'm being a little Pharisee. Jesus. ministered to the outcasts. He ministered to the people who
were not allowed to be part of the structure of mercy or grace
or spiritual things. He ministered to the ones who
were rejected. I mean, think about the man born
blind. And his disciples, what are they
asking Jesus? He walks up and there's this
man begging, he'd been born blind. And one of the disciples said,
teacher, what did he do or did his parents sin to make him be
born blind? And we don't have to revisit
that at all, but Jesus goes, neither. This man was born blind
that the glory of God may be revealed in it. And then that same day, this
man becomes, he gets his sight and he runs into the Levites
and the priests and the Pharisees and he says, look, I can see. And they kick him out. You're a liar. You must have
been lying the last 40 years, or however, I can't remember,
30-something years. You must have been lying out there, lying.
You could see. Let's call his parents. Hey,
Mom and Dad, was this boy born blind? He's a grown man. I'm not speaking for him. He
can tell you himself. Why? Because they didn't want
to get involved. They didn't want to get ostracized. They
didn't want to get kicked out of the temple. They didn't want
to lose their livelihood. They didn't want to lose their
income. They didn't want to lose their family. They didn't want
to lose their property. Jesus was all about that. That's why he had no place to
lay his head. I mean, Jesus' life and ministry
represented how grace triumphed over the law, the law of death,
the law of requirements. And this parable is seen sort
of like a critique of that system and then an exposition of that
system and like an expose of the heart of those who are bound
by it. Paul talks about it in Romans
5, is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And He died for us, and that
is the ultimate act of compassion. justice requires recompense justice
requires death for the wages of sin is death, but the free
gift of life is of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus So
how is it that we can stand before God the Father in righteousness
is because Christ took our penalty That's compassion That's love
that's kindness that's grace that's mercy that's And if the
God of the cosmos can take on humanity and stand in our place,
then can we not stand in the gap with others who are different
than us? Let's think about it for a second. Let's think about this in closing. What's the call to action? I think we need to realize and
absorb the radical nature of the gospel. It's radical. It's crazy. It's absolutely absurd. It's something that's just like,
it's not this piecemealed, mealy silliness. I mean, it's crazy that God would show compassion
and mercy the way he did. is just like. How justice is satisfied in the
context of a substitute. Of the righteousness of the God-man
being credited to us, that we now are righteous. And that one
day we will, listen, share in that glory, in that manifested
absolute beauty, by being made like Christ anew. Don't forget that at the marriage
supper of the Lamb, the Lamb serves His people. He's not standing there with
a sword. He's serving again. We stand with Him. Don't mix it up. Only time you
see Jesus standing with a sword is in a posture against His enemies
as a victor. not before his people as a king to be bowed down to. Think about it. We need to embrace the gospel. God extends grace and salvation
to all. for whom Christ died. And that
gospel service is expressed to all people when the church serves
and loves them. And we ought to be about making
sure that the whole world not only hears the truth, but sees
the truth. And we need to live out the gospel
every day. We need to live out our faith through acts of compassion
and kindness and neighborly love. Not just good deeds, but manifestation
of the love and grace we receive from Christ. Sometimes it's about
forgiveness, sometimes it's about compassion, sometimes it's just
about being there and letting someone tell us something that
they need to say. And when we do these things,
when we live this way, we're going to grow, we're going to
transform. We need to seek every single
day ways to express Christ's love as it comes available. We
don't have to go out hunting it. Just be prepared. Because Christ is our example. Christ is our example. The first
of the year I'm going to start teaching through 1st and 2nd
Peter. in 1st Peter chapter 2. The question is, for what credit
is it if when you sin you're beaten, you endure? But if you
do good and you suffer for it, you endure. This is a gracious
thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called.
because Christ also suffered for you." Listen to this, leaving
you an example so that you might follow in his
steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered,
he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to the one
who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his
body on that tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been
healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned
to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Beloved, Christ is also an example. He's much more than that. He
is Savior. He is King. He is Lord. He is
God. He is the Christ. He is satisfied God's wrath.
He is our righteousness. He is our wisdom. He is love,
but He is also our example. And my prayer for us is that
we would begin to think about being that example. That we would become Christ-like
in more ways than we've ever become before. And in the freedom
of the gospel without any care about what the world would say
around us. He paid for our sins in his body.
and now we are His righteousness. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for this day, for everything that you've done in Christ, for
everything that you've given us. Lord, I thank you for sustaining
us, for keeping us, for never letting us go. How many times
in our lives are we all at a precipice that we can just walk away, but
we can't walk away when your Spirit has sealed us. And as far away as we can get,
we're still never gone. So Lord, as we learn from the
truth of these parables, Lord, I pray that it would drive us
to mercy, that it would drive us to celebration, that it would
press us into a place of just resting, not worrying, not laboring,
but resting. But Father, that it would always,
also in that rest, help us establish a place of action. Lord, begin to open our boundaries,
our borders, our lives. to other people. Help us to begin
to see and pay attention to things around us, to be mindful of where
we are every day. Lord, I know that you will bring
all these things into our lives as you've seen fit. Father, transform our hearts
that we may know who our neighbor is. And that we would not put
walls around us because of theological differences or political differences
or other types of social things. That we would do the gospel every
day. And we thank you for this power
and for your love and for everything, Father, that you've done in us. And Father, we also pray that
you would be actively working through us. In Christ's name,
amen.