Always, always. Well, everything's upside down.
Hold on. I'm going to be in the Gospel of
Luke this morning, chapter 10. A very well-known parable I want
to go through for many reasons. For many reasons. Luke chapter
10, starting in verse 20. Oh, I see that. Hold on a minute. No, verse 25. Sorry about that. Okay, back out to verse 21. Here
we go. In the same hour, he rejoiced. and the Holy Spirit, and said,
this is Jesus, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding,
and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your
gracious will. All things have been handed over
to you by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the
Father, or who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to
whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Then turning to his disciples,
he said privately, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see,
for I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what
you see and did not see, and to hear what you hear and did
not hear. Now the parable. And behold,
a lawyer stood up to put him to test, saying, Teacher, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What does
the law say? 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 and 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? And Jesus
replied, a story. A man was going down from Jerusalem
to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and
beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now, by chance,
a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he
passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite, when he came
to the place and saw this man, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan, as he passed, 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 to the innkeeper, saying, take care of him, and
whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. Which
of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who
fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him
mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. Now, there's some things in here
that, in my area of hobby expertise, that I love to dance around.
When it comes to epistemology, to validating what we know, to
understanding why and how we apply what we understand, et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and in the context of applying
what we learn in the Bible, living it out, philosophically and practically. I can get very excited and get
very bogged down. And I took a whole bunch of notes
this week that I won't deal with today, but I write more than
I need lately, which is a good thing. If I get it on paper,
I don't have to say it to you. But there's several things that
I want you to see here. And first of all, I think we need to be
reminded about the context of what's happening. Why would Jesus,
number one, deal with this in the culture? So he's talking
with this lawyer, this legal arguer, this person who knew
the law, someone who would educate righteousness and justice. Think
about that for a second. And he's just said privately
to his disciples, this is why I was trying to figure out exactly
where I wanted to start, but privately to his disciples, you know, you're
blessed because you see what many have longed to see but couldn't
see. Now he's talking specifically of himself, you're standing and
visibly seeing the kingdom of heaven come down. You're seeing
Messiah, Meshach, the Christ, standing before you, what they
longed for, like what we see in Hebrews chapter 11 where you
know, these never saw or reached it. They looked at it from afar.
That's one way, but there's also another way in which Jesus, and
I'll show you this in the second point, but Jesus makes it very
clear throughout his entire ministry that he teaches in parables as
to not be very direct in his theological teaching. Why? Because when the Holy Spirit
illuminates and opens the eyes of one of God's sheep, one of
God's children, at the time that God has allotted, there is an
apprehension that goes beyond cognitive understanding, even
though there is a lot of cognitive understanding, that is always
subjective, depending on IQ, depending on background, depending
on language, depending on what's going on, depending on your physical
health and your mental health and your emotional health, your
education. But there is a sense in which
God establishes a resting understanding and a faith in someone because
he does that supernaturally. And then they, with whatever
type of tool they have with their brain, they're able to latch
on to Christ. And so the Bible teaches us that
Jesus taught in parables as to not to be direct. Let's not give
the theological answer. Let's not give the treatises
on what the legalist would always argue, what the self-righteous
would argue. Because culture, according to
the will of God, had come to such a place where people had
forgotten the mercy of God, the compassion of God, had forgotten
the grace of God, thus the gospel of Jesus Christ. Just the gospel
of the Messiah. The good report, the good story,
the good promise of God that would establish a people for
himself forever. They'd forgotten it. And they
built themselves up in such a way that they become not just racist,
not just bigoted, not just sexist, not just arrogant, not just terrible,
not just tyrants, not just oppressors. But they became elite. And they
did so with the humble brag, they did so with the, thank God
I'm not like that guy, you know? Thank God I'm no longer this
way, thank God I'm no longer ignorant of this theological
truth. Thank God I've got this together, thank God, thank you
God for doing all this in me, thank you God. Praise be to God
that you've made me to be this amazing, almost Christ-like man.
And it's like, this is the attitude of the religious elites. And
brothers and sisters, this is the same attitude that we have
today when we grab onto something that God has even allowed us
to see, and we're not applying it in a place of servanthood,
compassion, love, and selflessness. So when we get to the idea and
the historical theology of, you know, we know what the rule of
life is and all we use these terms that are not wrong, but
they're just misunderstood because everybody's made a mountain out
of a molehill and actually dug them all up, killed him, burned
him and turned him into an ant and then try to make it into another type
of hill. And everywhere you go, there's always confusion because
there's always elitism in the context of even humility, according
to the culture that everybody knows what they're doing. And
if you just listen to them, they'll tell you. And in the day of Jesus,
when he was speaking these very things to this lawyer in the
earshot of public, there was a dynamic that was wicked amongst
the religious. And they hated people. They hated
people that didn't look like them. They hated people that
didn't dress like them. They hated people that didn't speak
like them. They hated people that didn't sing like them. They
hated people that didn't bathe like them. They hated people
that didn't eat like them. They couldn't stand to be around people
that didn't think like them. And if they did not tower and
they weren't equals, they were nothing. And that was just in
their own people. That was just among Jews. Just among the worshipers of
God in Judaism. So then you've got other cultures,
what they would call the world. In the New Testament, you see
the world is usually speaking of, almost 90% of the time, even
more, I'll just say most of the time, it's usually always speaking
of non-Jewish people. And Jewish people were a minority
in the world, always have been. And so here we see this spiritual
elite, and we see Jesus telling a story. And so in this context,
this Jewish Samaritan animosity, this whole situation began when
Samaritans began to relate to Jews, began to adopt their theological
things and their precepts and their liturgy, and they created
a replica of Solomon's temple on Mount Gerizim, and they began
to worship just like Israel, but they weren't allowed to worship
with Israel because they weren't pure like Israel. They weren't
theologically astute like Israel. They weren't able to rub elbows
and to be intimate with those people because they weren't good
enough in the eyes of God. And you've got to understand
that Judaism in the first century, much like Christianity in the
century that we're in, it's funny how we're just jumping back two
centuries in the music end of the sermon, is shame-based. It's control-based. You might
not think that, but think about the things that you grew up,
if you grew up in the church, learning what you could not do.
I mean, come on, let's think about it for a second. If you
go to Sunday school, or if you go to camp, or you go to Bible
study, or you go to a sermon, or you're in some type of evangelical
church in the South, it may not be the same way everywhere, but
I know in the South, two or three times a year you went to church,
you heard what you shouldn't be doing. You heard what you
can't say, what you can't eat, what you can't do, where you
can't go, what you can't watch, what you can't listen to. But
did you ever hear who you were? Did you ever hear who God was? Did you ever hear who the Jesus
of the Bible was and what he accomplished for you, what he
did for you, his sheep? And then what liberty did it
gave you? freedom of conscience, freedom of fear, freedom in a
way to worship, to be authentic. See, we've been taught not to
be authentic. We've been taught not to be ourselves.
We've been taught even when we find things in us that we know
are not pleasing to God, that are sinful, we've been taught
to hide those things and not speak of those things because
anyone who would think of those things are obviously not the child of
God. This is the worst deception that has ever plagued humanity
when it comes to the believers. this world Now imagine being
a Samaritan They were not they were of the world to begin with
that then they adopted this. I Don't even know what to say
it This cultural Judaism and you can read about this in 2nd
Kings chapter 17 if you want to see the Assyrian conquest
and But this divergence that took place here became them not
just not like us, but the antithesis of us. They are the most disgusting
dogs of society. How dare they take our God and
worship him in this way, you see? How dare they? And if you
wanna get an idea of just how great that tension is in the
New Testament, think about Jesus in John chapter five where he
speaks to the woman of Sychar. One of my favorite places to
go when I evangelize. It's one of my favorite places
to go when I evangelize because it is Jesus tearing down without
teaching. He's showing, not telling. See,
that's the problem, too, that we often have, and I'll say that.
And this is why Jesus, and this is my second point when I get
to it, Jesus uses parables. He shows. He doesn't tell. He
shows. We should be showing rather than
just telling. And I'll explain that as the
weeks unfold. I mean, as the points unfold.
So here we have this parable, and then this lawyer comes up.
He gets this parable because he asked a question. We have
this issue with these Samaritans who were hated, and this lawyer
comes in, he's like, so what shall I do? Does this sound familiar, the
rich young ruler? What shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Now Jesus gives a similar answer in every way, but this time he
uses the Socratic method. which means he asked a question
to answer a question. He pulls the answer out of the
questioner. Sometimes we do that with our
children, right? I love to know why and what people are thinking.
Sometimes they think I'm being negative or indifferent when
I ask questions, but it's not the way. I just like to know.
It's just habitual for me. This man, he stood up and the
Bible says that he put Jesus to the test. Now, what was his
motive according to that? to prove Jesus wrong, to prove
Jesus wrong. Because you've got to understand,
you've got to understand what Jesus has been saying. Jesus
has been teaching a lot of stuff. He's just said that the Father
has handed everything over to Him. I mean this is the, this
is a tall I mean, it's like somebody ringing your doorbell, and you've
never met them, and they start talking, and, hey, I just got
into town, I got a flat tire in front of your house, and by
the way, on my way here, God told me, I'm gonna pop your tire,
and I'm gonna go in and see this family. And he told me to write
this down on a napkin, and I'm gonna be your guardian for the
next six weeks during this thunderstorm series. You're gonna be like,
yeah, get out of my face. And rightly so. But, right before
this conversation, some days before or whatever, Jesus cast
out demons in front of people. Jesus healed people. Jesus got...
Jesus might blind people see, and lame people walk, and arms
grow back, and voices come out, and ears learn to hear, and all
this kind of stuff. So, I mean, He's not just talking.
He's not just telling them who He is. He's showing them. He's
not just telling them, here is the theology behind what you
need to get correct. He is showing them, I am. I am what? No, I am, I am, you
see. So this lawyer is testing Jesus. He wants to see in his mind,
he said, okay, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they couldn't
catch him, but I can. How many times has this happened?
We see it in almost every New Testament gospel. We see it several
times. What can I do? See, this question,
it's a reflection of this man's heart. It's a reflection, listen
to this very carefully, of this man's understanding of the grace
of God. Understanding of the gospel,
which the gospel means the story of Christ that is good, the report,
the promise of God. The gospel is only what God has
declared to do. The story of it, and then the
story of the fact that it was done. It is the telling of what
God has done and what God has promised. No other theologies No other
thing, it is just the telling of what Christ has done. Jesus,
the Messiah, the Holy Anointed One of God, the Son of God, God
Himself in the flesh, came and died for His people and raised
life, proving that He was who He said He was, and He promised,
as He said He would come, He did, and He's alive, He promised
He would receive His Son to Himself. And we rest in that, with childlike,
infantile, spiritually divine, gifted faith. This lawyer's question, established
a peek into his heart. See, Jewish concern for righteousness
and salvation is seen as an adherence to the law. So Jesus asked the
question. He says, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? Jesus says, well, what does the law say? And he's,
two-part question, right? What does the law say and how
do you understand it? How do you interpret it? The crazy thing about that is
when Jesus asked this question every single time in the Bible
or something relative to it, He always asked this question
to people who are self-righteous. He never asked this question
evangelistically. You know why? Because this isn't
evangelism. Showing people the error of their
way is not showing them the truth of Christ. Because anybody can be convinced
that they're wrong, but only God, the Holy Spirit, can give
us this assurance that He is right. There's hope in that, beloved.
There's not hope in anything else. How do you respond? I mean, what
do you think He says? How do you read this? This response
showcases that Jesus engaged people in dialogue and helped
them discover truths through their own understanding. And
oftentimes those truths were wrong. But it wasn't evangelistic. This man came to probably an
epiphany going, oh my goodness. Just like the people we see,
you know, in that parenthetical in John 8, John 7 and 8, where
the first one without sin, go ahead, chuck stone. It's not
a fake story, it's just not canonized. But it doesn't tell us that all
those people came to know Christ. They just in that moment understood
a theological truth and they walked in it for a minute. But
it doesn't mean that they were born again. It doesn't mean that
they were anywhere closer to God. You don't get closer to
salvation. You don't get closer to God. You don't get closer
to being born again. You don't all of a sudden get, you don't
get all the, it doesn't stack up. God's not like wooing and
drawing and massaging and coercing. He's like, boom, you're born
again. I don't know anything, but I
know one thing, Christ is the only answer I've got. I don't know
much, and I know I've tried to think about a lot of things,
but all I know is when Messiah comes, he will teach me these
things that I've so longed to know. Where does that come from?
That's the woman at Sychar, that's a Samaritan woman. And the Spirit
of God gave her that option, gave her that security, gave
her that, and she goes back and tells these people who she did
not want to even face, come and see this man that I have met.
who has told me everything that I've ever done. He is and may well be the Christ. See, many people have correct
understanding. Many people can be corrected theologically. Many
people can get the doctrine right. Beloved, I have expert knowledge
of the talking points of a lot of different subjects. A lot
of different subjects. Because I love it. It doesn't
make me a physicist. It doesn't make me a neurosurgeon.
It doesn't make me a psychotherapist. It doesn't make me a mathematician. It doesn't make me a linguist. I understand the acoustics of
a violin. It doesn't make me a master violinist, nor does
it make me a creator of violins. So anyone, I've had professors
in seminary who knew doctrine and who knew theology and who
knew the gospel so well that I wept in class, but they were
lost and they would say it, I don't believe this, I just know it.
You don't have a PhD in anything. You can research yourself to
become an expert in any subject, in any iteration of that subject,
in any microscopic element of that subject. It doesn't make
you saved and God is not impressed. And when you come to know certain
things, it is not proof of your salvation. Your salvation is
proven only in the finished work of Jesus Christ, in which you
rest, in which you stand, no matter how you parse it. And I want you, beloved, to rest
in that. and not fight inside your mind
with the fodder and the noise that our culture, that in this
very community and in your very home sometimes we get caught
up in. Rest. What must I, am I doing this
right? Am I doing that right? Am I doing this? Why? Because
I want to honor the Lord. Great, good questions. Because
I'm scared I'm not saved. Bad. You see? Resting. And like I said earlier,
we grew up learning what we shouldn't be doing, and then we realize
we're doing it all, right? Whether we're practicing this
bad thing over here, we got this bad thing over here. I think
I was talking with mom last night about this on the phone. I mean,
we're all guilty of sin. We're all guilty. We're all guilty
of being horrible people. And I'm just thankful I haven't
murdered anybody yet, physically. I'm not proud of myself because
I don't do this or don't do that or don't do the other. And there
have been times in my life I couldn't see past that. I'm like, you
know what, hey, wow. Man, I'm glad I never fell into
that. Not in a self-righteous way, but sometimes we feel a
little pride knowing that we didn't fall into certain things.
Oh my goodness, it's in there, it's in us. And what's, I mean,
is there any, is there anything that we can really say that We've
done well before the Lord that He would give us credit for?
Is there anything? Can we even say, yeah, I came
to the truth and I believed? No. We can say, no, your mercy
and grace has set me before you righteously. And beloved, here's
the amazing thing. In glory, we will be made righteous. We will be renewed. to be beheld
as Christ is. Jesus uses these parables. See,
a lot of people have these understandings, and some of which is extremely
correct, but if they cannot apply, listen to this, if people cannot
apply the knowledge of the Bible in their life and their thoughts
and in their practice, they have failed to understand it. They have failed in their knowledge
of it. The litmus test of our love for the Lord Jesus Christ
is that we love others. Did I say the litmus test of
our regeneration? No. Did I say the litmus test of
our salvation? No. What's the litmus test of our salvation?
Christ. Jesus Christ and his righteousness. It's really that
simple. Resting faith, simple grace,
all these things, all these concepts, it's really that simple. We have
made so complex such simple things. They will know that you are.
They will know that you are my followers because you love each
other. What is this sofa made of? I
don't know. How long will it last? Couldn't
tell you. What's the tensile strength of the legs? Wouldn't
know how to calculate it. What do you know? Sit on it.
Isn't that comfortable? Rest. So Jesus uses parables. Why did
he do that? In Matthew 13, Jesus says these
words. He says, this is why I speak in parables. Because seeing they
do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Parables were a means to reveal
truths to those who had the ears to hear. And it concealed the truth from
those who did not have the ears to hear. How do you have the
ears? The Holy Spirit gives you the ears. And I don't want to get into
my theology and how I parse out the realities of regeneration
and faith and all these things. I think they're all intricately
the same thing. So Jesus engaged by telling stories. And they weren't just simple
stories, but they were designed to provoke thought. to challenge
the understanding of the conventional culture, and to invite listeners
into a process of deeper understanding. Let me tell you something, beloved.
You remember, and I say this, this isn't new, I say this a
lot. When we read the Bible, I mean, you ever, let's just
take the Bible off the table for a minute. You're reading a story,
you're reading an article, you're reading an essay, you're reading
fiction, you're reading a biography. Don't in your mind sometimes
just go, wow. And you start thinking about
that stuff. You start mulling through these things and you
think a little bit deeper. And you think, well, I wonder
what it was like to live then. Or I wonder what was going on. I wonder what
color their dress was. You start envisioning things.
Not everybody's visual like me. Not everybody has an internal
dialogue that doesn't stop. Not everybody sees in pictures.
Not everybody sees in colors. Not everybody sees, you know,
we all are different. We're all different. But in the
same way, I think when we read things and we engage in things,
sometimes we think about them. And we stop and then when it's
over, if we go to a movie and we start thinking, I mean, where
do you think the fan fiction comes from? Or the ideas, what do you
think about it? What about the universe here?
Blah, blah, blah, and we get going. I mean, just look at chess theory.
I think about just chess theory from the time I learned to play
chess at 10. And where it is today, it's just like, I'm done. It's just so much because we
continue to expand. The problem with expansion is
when we create new things. But if we're doing that with
the mundane of life, with the intricacies of these extracurricular
things, with all of the other stuff, even with the news, why
are we not doing that with the Word of God? When a parable like
this is presented to us, we should not say, okay, Jesus got that
guy. That's not the point. The point is for us to pause
and go, who am I in the story? Who is Christ in the story? How
do I feel about this? What am I thinking about myself?
What am I thinking about this? What am I thinking about what
I learned earlier to what I'm going to be doing tomorrow? How
do I apply this? What's the big deal? We should
be thinking. We should meditate on the Word
of God, not just recite it, not just memorize it. Memorization
is not wrote. Memorization is absorption and
application. And you can paraphrase the Bible
all day long, it is still the Word of God. It still has power. If you think
the KJV or the ESV or the NIV or the Greek manuscripts we have
are authoritative in and of themselves in the language, you've missed
the point. So Jesus uses these parables
and he challenges the understanding of his listeners. And he invites his people to
process this with deeper understanding. So let's look at these characters.
Let's look at these characters. So we got these people. So there's
this man. He's going down from Jerusalem
to Jericho. He fell among robbers. He didn't fall down. He fell
among robbers. In other words, he got jacked. He got mugged
on the street. And they beat him so badly they
left him half dead. So there's a priest, and a Levite,
and a Samaritan. Sounds like a joke, right? A
priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan go down to Jericho. But these people represent something.
And so when I was telling a story, when Jesus was telling a story,
and if I were standing there as a as a lawyer, as an arguer
of righteousness, as a debater and arbiter of justice. Think
about that now, educating righteousness. If I were that person and I heard
someone say a Levite came by or a priest came by, I'd have
an understanding of what was being said. I'd have an understanding. So, a priest. What's a priest? A priest is the person who mediates
between God and man. A priest is the one who goes
to the Holy of Holies. A priest is the one who pours the blood
of the sacrifice on the Ark of the Covenant. A priest is the
one who enters into the place, into the mercy seat. A priest
is the one who is the representation of God's mediation, which is
Jesus Christ. A priest is the one who offers
prayers. A priest is the one who offers offerings. A priest
is the one who oversees the worship. of redemption, sacrifice, and
justice. So from a lawyer's perspective,
a priest would be like, oh, this priest, if he walked away, holy
cow, we should all walk away. If the priest doesn't stop and
help this man, why would he not? Because this man is unclean.
The priest is near righteous as you can get, right? You got
a Levite. tribe of Levi. What are these people? These
are the priests. All priests come from the tribe
of Levi. And so when we see these people here, not just the priests,
but somebody in his lineage comes by and does him a favor. The
people who are supposed to what? epitomize the mercy and the compassion
and the love and the grace of God. They are supposed to be
walking testaments to good news. Now think about that. The beauty of that and understanding
that culturally helps us really pick the picture up when Jesus
says, you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. That we are ministers. See, only priests ministered
and administered. But we are ministers of a new
covenant. Paul would say that we're ministers of a new covenant.
We have this precious treasure in jars of clay. 2 Corinthians
chapter 3 and 4. And here's this whole line. of
mercy givers, of mercy displayers, of mercy preachers, of mercy
practicers, showing no mercy. If you love me, you will obey
my commandment. You know the whole context of 1 John has to
do with our compassion toward others. You know that, right?
So when we test the spirits, we test the spirits for two things.
We test the spirits to make sure they say that Christ is the Son
of God in the flesh, number one. Number two, that you give as
you have ability to love to others. That's it. And in that context,
we take James, the epistle, the apostle James and his letter,
and we see that a real active living faith is one that loves
with compassion and, you know, not indifference, but in the
sense of being, what am I trying to say, not showing favoritism. A professing Christian without
absolute compassion is a noisy gong. A professing Christian
without patience for others is a clanging cymbal. A professing
Christian without humility and servitude in the face of the
devil is worthless. Those aren't my dogmas. Those
are Paul's dogmas. First Corinthians chapter 13,
go read it. He says those exact same things. And beloved, I don't have it. Let me say that again, I don't
have it. I don't have the compassion, the love, the kindness, and the
patience that I need to have. I don't have it. I learned to
posture it and made myself believe that I did, but all I was doing
was placating to conserve what I thought was peace. And if I'm
gonna be honest, God gives me compassion when I need it. But
I'm not walking around in this cloud of overly kindness. Some people do and I praise God
for it. But I am kind and compassionate and that's all I want to be.
But I'm not always that way. And neither are you. And even
though I may not show it, there's sometimes in our hearts, beloved,
we know sometimes in our hearts, I was talking with Abigail about
this yesterday, sometimes we're called to love people, even the
nasty ones, the unlovable ones, and we get to that now. But we
have to be honest and say, no, I don't love these people. I
don't feel love for these people. I don't want to be kind to these
people. But when we reflect on the mercy of Christ, we reflect
on the mercy of God, we reflect on the mercy of the story of
the gospel, Then we go, wow, now I can't. And so we're empowered
by the Spirit of God to do such things. And so it's not in us,
it's not of us, it's of Christ. And yes, we grow in the disciplines
and we learn and we become softer. But we're never gonna escape
that little voice sometimes. There's always a person or persons
or ideal or something that will trigger us to make us like, ugh,
I just hate these. And it's okay, be honest about
that. Be authentic before the Lord about those things. And
then don't destroy yourself. For there's no condemnation for
us who are in Christ before the Father. Why would we condemn
ourselves before him? Stop it. Don't do that. So this priest
and this Levite, the picture, of compassion, they're more concerned
over ritual purity. Listen to this. They're more
concerned over ritual purity, what looks good, what the culture
says is good, what they should be, how they should be being
seen, or the fear of danger. Oh, if I go over there, maybe
that guy's going to mug me, or maybe I'm going to be in trouble. That's
a bad neighborhood. I don't know. But it reflects this tension
between the law and the gospel. It reflects this tension between,
you know, getting it all right and living life in the moment
for the sake of the gospel of Christ. But then we got the Samaritan,
right? And this tertiary of tricksters. We've got the one who actually
is a representation of sin. We've got the one who actually
is the one who's just sort of gross, a dog of the world. That if A Samaritan was walking
down the street and you were a Jewish person, you would cross
the street to not pass by them. Reminds me of some of the things
that I've seen in history. In every country, in every place,
in every generation. Racism and sexism and all these
other different things that people just, you see genocide and all
this other stuff, people just hate certain peoples. Because
of the fact that they are something. The Samaritan is actually the
hero. The Samaritan is actually the
picture of Christ. And it's shocking. It's shocking for Jesus. Because
here's what that lawyer would think. The Levite came and the
priest came. What's the Samaritan? The Samaritan
is probably going to rob him again. The Samaritan is probably
going to kick him when he goes. The Samaritan is probably going
to spit on him. And if he goes over there, this
poor guy who was a Jewish brother, the priest in Levi's wouldn't
even say it. The Samaritan goes over there and helps him, then he'll
never be a help. He'll never be able to be in society again.
So if the Samaritan does do good, he's gonna ruin this man's life.
He's gonna ruin this man's religious life. He's gonna ruin this man's
social life. You got healed by a Samaritan.
So not only does the Samaritan do it, I mean it was a shock,
it was offensive to the audience that Jesus was talking to. It
was offensive. I can't say what I'm thinking
because it is too harsh for a general audience. But imagine the most grotesque
and vile person that you hope never comes into your life, by
what they do or what they represent. And imagine that person coming
to your rescue. This man, this Samaritan, this
person, he gave first aid, he gave shelter, he gave financial
assistance. It defied everything these people stood for in the
name of God. Yet he was doing it all in the
light of God. There's more to learn here. There's
a lot more to learn here. That was point one of a nine-part
message. I tell you, I wrote a lot. But let's think about Christ.
Let's think about Christ in this story. The Samaritan's actions
reflect Christ's mission to seek and save the lost. to show compassion,
to overcome and battle self-righteousness, but not culturally, spiritually. Just as the Samaritan was an
outsider who provided compassionate care, Jesus was what? Became
an outsider. Why do you say that? He was hated.
The scripture said he would be hated. He would become outsider. He would be taken outside the
camp. He was crucified. Everywhere he turned he did things
that would put him on the outside of the culture of rigid of religion
outside the culture of Judaism He washed the feet of other people
he intermingled with tax collectors and thieves and Nightworkers And murderers and bigots But yet he'd go into the temple
and profess the very thing that the prophets said that he would
and they'd kick him out. Christ came as an outsider and
brought salvation to those outside. He brought salvation not to the
righteous, not to the religious, not to the saved, not to the
secure, but to the lost. The gospel of grace. This whole thing is a picture
of the gospel of grace. This parable points to the grace
of God, the compassion of God, which transcends human boundaries,
transcends liturgy, transcends religious practice, transcends
theological distinctions, transcends, transcends, transcends. And some
people, and we'll just go ahead and do this little caveat here,
some people say, oh, so you're saying, no, I'm saying exactly
what I'm saying, it transcends it. I'm not affording any place
for false teaching in any way. And when it does come, we just
say, no, that's incorrect. The Bible says this, and that's
the end of it. We don't succumb to any kind of jury because somebody
else thinks that our theology is off, and then the theology
is not off, and all of a sudden now we're born again. That's
just like the priest and the Levite. That's just like the
way the people treated the Samaritans. And beloved, I think you should
separate yourself from that idea. and from anyone who promotes
it because they can't stand it. They have to get dogmatic. They
can't even trust in the sovereignty of God and His grace and His
power because they have to pound the drums. You gotta listen,
you gotta listen, you gotta listen. No, there is no urgency of, there's
no urgency of you better watch out. You better separate. I mean this is nonsense. The worst thing that we've ever
done as, I'm not gonna say as a church, but in general, as
Christians in our culture, is to separate ourselves from the
world. And make the distinction, well
these are lost people over here, and we're saved, so we gotta
stay together. No, we need to go into the world.
We're not of the world, we need to be in the world. In the last six to eight weeks,
I think I've talked to 300 people about the gospel. It's been empowering. And I've
heard nothing new, but I've heard all the same old, same old. about
yeah I know God loves me because of X or I know I'm going to be
in heaven because of this and I'm like that's amazing that's
interesting I've heard that before let me tell you what the Bible
says about that and then I leave on the Word of God and then they're
like wow and then that's the end of it that is God's business
what happens after that it is not for me to parse their minds
or their souls or their spiritual conditions in any way. And if
they show up here and say, I believe, we will accept them as a brother
or sister in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if anything changes, we will
gently and lovingly correct them. And when they're corrected, we
say, praise God, we've gained a sibling. That's as simple as
it is, because that is the commands of Christ for his church and
his elders and its elders, its overseers and its congregation,
its family. We're not going to police people. Because when we police people,
we walk the other side of the road. When we police people,
we are not Christ-like. But Ohio, I wanted to get into
the next question because what I've just done begs the question,
then who is my neighbor? The Bible says I should love
my neighbor. And some people segregate this idea about segregation
and separation because they say, well, they're not my brothers,
they're not my sisters, so I don't, I'm not accountable to them.
Yes, we are. We're responsible, we're obligated,
not necessarily accountable. We're accountable to God, not
for our righteousness and purity, not for the ritualistic picture
of purity, not for Puritanism or Puritan culture. but for standing
in the purity of Christ alone, imputed to us, given to our account,
credited to us. So Jesus asked the question,
or the lawyer asked the question, or no, Jesus asked the question,
which of these three do you think provided, proved to be a neighbor
to the man who fell among the robbers? Because the man answered
the question. I didn't even say that, but you
heard it. The man asks the question, to love the Lord your God with
all your soul, mind, strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.
That is the law of God. And he goes, good, do it. Which
one of these do you think did it? And the man doesn't even say
the Samaritan. The man says the one who showed
compassion. The one who showed compassion.
So Jesus expands the concept of what it means to be a neighbor. It's beyond social and theological
and spiritual and cultural constructions. I mean, you've got to understand,
we've got strict social boundaries in our day, but they're nothing
like they were in this religious culture in the first century. The greatest of all these things
is to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as
yourself. The Samaritan's actions illustrate that anyone in need,
I want you to listen to this simple thing, it's a story, it's
a simple story, anyone in need, regardless of their background,
regardless of their place in life, is our neighbor. I'm gonna say that again. Anyone
in need, emotional, psychological, physical, spiritual, anyone in
need is our neighbor. When we are presented with that
opportunity, and we can, they are our neighbor. And that compassion needs to
be Christ-like in this way as far as I'm about to say, even
those who reject the gospel. I'm having amazing conversations
with atheists right now. About once a week, 15 minutes. It's neat. And it's amazing how
many atheistic principles I agree with. because of the way the Christian
culture has formed itself. And the only difference is they
haven't been given eyes to see and a heart to rest in the sovereignty
of God and salvation through Christ Jesus. They blame the
Jesus of the culture they see on the atrocities of hate. It's almost 90% of all of them. And I love it. I absolutely love
it. And I'm not debating. I'm not
doing apologetics. I'm just listening. Answering. Agreeing. Disagreeing. Posturing. Pondering. But this has so much more that
I want to talk about. A contemporary application. This
idea of overcoming indifference. Looking at the greater goods.
We'll look at that. We'll look at some of that next week, but today I want to close
with understanding this. It's that Christ is the true
neighbor. So we're not to take away from
this parable the simple only. We're to take away from this
parable the simple only, that we have application. Jesus didn't say this so he could
only hide theological truths. He said this so that he could
teach theological truths. For those who can see him in
the midst of those, it's a double whammy. He calls all people to
be compassionate. It's a requirement. But we who
have seen the compassion of Christ, we have seen the love of God
in Christ, we have seen the gospel of Christ, we have been participants,
we who have been given the Holy Spirit, we who have been born
again as the beloved of God, adopted into the Lord Jesus Christ,
We, of all people, must see that Jesus Christ is the good neighbor.
He is the best neighbor. He is the one who loves us with
an unfailing love. And no matter where we are, He
meets us where we are. We're not looking for Him. He
finds us. When we're hiding, He digs us up. When we're dead,
He resurrects us. And there is nothing that can
separate us from His love. There is no will, no magic, no
man, no monster, nothing that can keep us from Him. When He
said it is finished, He showed us the truth of His love. And
it wasn't just an example, though it is, it was an effectual reality. It was a transaction. It was
a contract, a promise. God the Father and God the Son,
before the foundation of the world eternally, purposed to
create a world in which Jesus the Christ would come into the
world to save His people. Without them, in spite of them,
and because of them. Get those three things in your
mind. Without them, means we're not doing anything for our salvation.
In spite of them, because we don't deserve it. And because
of them, because we are the object of His love. We are worthy and unworthy at
the same time. Get that. Get that. What do we do with it? We need
to reflect on this. We need to think about it. We
need to think about how we adhere to law, cultural law, religious
law, at the cost of compassion and love. And I've got a long
list. I'm not exaggerating when I say
250 pages or more of how this would play out. That's about
a year of stuff, I mean years of stuff. You categorize this
stuff in your mind, think about what you've written in your head.
Think about what's inside your brain, if you could put it down
on paper and look at it. Not only do we rest in the gospel,
We live the gospel. We live the grace of God as best
we can for His namesake. And we should love unconditionally.
That's a way of living out the gospel. Real faith is active. You know, you're not saved because
you've believed. And you are saved because you
believe. Sometimes we think that's the
other side. No, we're not. God is not waiting for us to
come to the right place. He puts us there. He gives us
faith. So we can rest, but when we rest,
knowing we have eternal life, we need to then invest in the
lives of those around us. Because one, even though it may
be eternal life, is a dead faith if it doesn't act. It's a worthless
faith if it doesn't love. And I don't know why that became
legalistic, because it doesn't relate to our hope and our assurance. Beloved, I ask you, I implore
you, please consider the love of God in Christ Jesus and how
it can be lived out in your life right now, in your inner spirit,
in the mind that you have, the things that you have not let
go of, the people that you have not forgiven. And it's okay.
We have to work through these things. It takes time. Just because someone says, I'm
sorry, I preached on that a couple of months ago, doesn't mean that
they're just automatically sitting at the table playing blackjack
with us or watching movies with us. Sometimes we have to work
through the conflict, the emotions, the pain, but the forgiveness
needs to be there. Why? Because of compassion. But
I don't even think that's the primary issue that we deal with,
is it? I think that one of the primary issues we deal with in
our day is that we just don't seem to care. And that's okay too. Because
we're busy, we're tired, we're frustrated. So this wasn't written
so that we would become guilty. This was written that we may
become free to know the one who showed him mercy is displaying the love of God.
Go do likewise. We'll finish the rest of this
next week. Father, I thank you for this teaching. I thank you
for the word that you've given us, the gospel of Luke, and the
teachings of Jesus Christ our Lord. And Father, I pray that
as we grow in our understanding of these truths, that we would
live them, that we would have the freedom, Lord, that you've
given me reservation about some things. Father, you've given
me freedom about others, so Lord, let us work these things out
together as a church. Then we may love each other in
spite of each other and learn to do so freely without pretense
or fear of consequence. Lord, this week that we have,
this rainy day, allow us to just enjoy those we love, to see each
other and look in each other's face and see each other through
the eyes that you see us through. eyes of grace, the compassion
of Christ. We thank you for this. In His
name we pray. Amen.